Within the last hour, United Airlines has suspended all flights to China. Now all three U.S. legacy carriers-American, Delta, and United–have suspended service to Mainland China.
American Airlines Suspends Service To China
American Airlines announced a suspension of all Mainland China flights this morning. The suspension will run through March 27th. American will continue to fly to Hong Kong from Los Angeles and Dallas during this time.
Based on the U.S. Department of State’s recent increase of the China Travel Advisory to a Level 4 (Do Not Travel), American is suspending its operations to and from the Chinese mainland beginning today through March 27. Our teams are contacting affected customers directly to accommodate their needs. We will continue to evaluate the schedule for March 28 and beyond and make any adjustments as necessary.
Delta Air Lines Suspends Service To China
Delta is suspending flights to China through April 30th, a whole month longer than American and United.
Delta has decided to temporarily suspend all U.S. to China flying beginning Feb. 6 through April 30 due to ongoing concerns related to the coronavirus. Between now and Feb. 5, Delta will continue to operate flights to ensure customers looking to exit China have options to do so.
The last China-bound flight departing the U.S. will leave on Monday, Feb. 3 with the last return flight back to the U.S. departing China on Feb. 5. The airline will continue to monitor the situation closely and may make additional adjustments as the situation continues to evolve.
Delta does not serve Hong Kong.
United Airlines Suspends Service To China
After cancelling an increasing number of flights this week, United has now suspended service to China through March 28th. One of two daily Hong Kong flights will continue to operate from San Francisco.
In response to the continued drop in demand for travel to China and the U.S. Department of State’s decision to raise its China travel advisory to a Level 4, we are suspending operations between our hub cities and Beijing, Chengdu and Shanghai, beginning Feb. 6 until March 28. Until that date, we will continue to operate select flights to help ensure our U.S. based employees, as well as customers, have options to return home. We will continue to operate one daily flight between San Francisco and Hong Kong. As always, the safety of our customers and employees is our highest priority and we will continue to monitor the situation as it develops.
Our last flight eastbound (from China to the United States) will be Feb. 5. The first day of no operations between China and the United States begins Feb. 6. Westbound, from the United States to China, the last flights will be Feb. 4, and the first day of no flights will be Feb. 5.
What To Do If Your Flight Is Cancelled
If you flight is cancelled, you can call your airline to discuss rebooking options or to receive a refund. If travel to China is essential, all three airlines have partners that (for now) will continue to operate to China. If you need to get to the Mainland, ask American to fly you via Hong Kong on Cathay Pacific/Cathay Dragon or on China Southern. Delta partners with China Eastern and China Southern, both of which continue to operate between the USA and China. Finally, United’s Air China partner has not suspended flights.
CONCLUSION
When the U.S. State Department issued its Level 4 warning this morning, it quickly became clear that U.S. airlines would quickly suspend service to China. For now, the question is will the coronavirus be contained in such a way that these route suspensions are not further extended.
Good. This should be good excuse to decouple from that culture. Now, their women are cute and food sometimes is ok but they are not our friends. They steal our technology and send these biological corona weapons once every decade around in the world.
Boycott china.
Here is the proof it was a biological weapon that ran away:
https://jameslyonsweiler.com/2020/01/30/on-the-origins-of-the-2019-ncov-virus-wuhan-china/
Great article!
Since debit is commenting, I will also make a disruptive comment. United is not cutting all service to China. They are keeping service to Hong Kong, as the article says. Also they are keeping service to Taipei, which the mainland claims is China. Yeah, Republic of China, not People’s Republic of China.
Hope this doesn’t spread further. I’ve got some Japan and South Korea travel planned in early March and I get to try out some new hard products in business class!
the latest figures from China’s NHC, their CDC, show 11,791 confirmed cases, 259 deaths, another 17,988 suspected cases, then yet another ***118,478*** being “closely monitored and tracked”.
http://www.nhc.gov.cn/yjb/s7860/202002/84faf71e096446fdb1ae44939ba5c528.shtml
These are quite in line with early modeling done by researchers around Jan 23-25 projecting low-to-mid-5-figures range and R0 assumptions of 1.4-2.5. But those were assuming typical historical trends of containment and treatment effectiveness.
Please don’t be under any delusions that this will *only* be as bad as Ebola 2014. If trends don’t show any slowing of growth in next 3 days then 100k case mark becomes even money bet.
Counterpoint
In the US since the start of the 2019 Flu season we’ve 10,000 deaths and 180,000 people hospitalized and 19 million Americans infected by the flu out of 329M US residents
Granted China’s Hubei province. probably has much more concentration of people per SQ Mile.
Flu Stats from CNN
Further counterpoint:
Hypothetically: if 18 million people were infected with coronavirus, based on a 2 % mortality rate, that would mean 360,000 deaths.
It’s rather more serious than the seasonal flu ( but point taken that flu itself is not taken sufficiently seriously)
It has happened before…and it took decades to recover from ‘Spanish’ flu.
Counterpoint:
If the US quarantined 54 million people the flu wouldn’t kill as many people.
Compare apples to pears, not oranges.
@debit Totally agree with you. Flight attendants are cute but let’s just boycott airlines altogether! They steal our money and food is sometimes ok. We get to use our points once every decade or so but it’s seriously not worth it. Let’s take the bus from now on.
Comment of the year. 10 points for you, Andrew. Not that Debit is ever worth your brilliant comeback.
Anyone know if this would possibly qualify for trip cancellation insurance claims? I fear not. Some non-refundable hotel reservations in March just went down the drain here.
If the flight is cancelled, then yes.
I’d be curious to know how the (United) aircraft might be utilized during this time. Perhaps the could get a bunch of the remaining 777-200s into the shop for Polaris retrofit!