In late August, Delta announced a future $200-per-month surcharge for employees on the company’s self-insured health plan who aren’t fully vaccinated for COVID-19. This surcharge is fair, Bastian said, because the average cost to Delta for an employee’s COVID-19 hospital stay is $50,000.

Bastian said the surcharge doesn’t take effect until Nov. 1 but is already achieving results. The vaccination rate for employees was 75% when the policy was announced and now is over 90%.

“As it starts kicking in the next few weeks, that number could easily go north of 95%,” Bastian said Friday during a Detroit Economic Club meeting.

Delta’s is taking a different approach to workforce vaccination than other airlines such as American Airlines and United Airlines, which have told employees they risk being terminated if they don’t get vaccinated by the looming deadline.