British Airways was the first to announce the suspension of its flights to Beijing and Shanghai from 28 Januaryfollowed by Lufthansa Group - including Austrian Airlines and Swiss - on 29 January. Air France has in turn suspended operations to the China on 30 January, but will be providing special flights to repatriate its customers and employees. An effective decision until 9 February 2020but which could well be extended depending on how the situation develops in relation to the coronavirus. Until then, only special flights will be operated between Paris and the airports of Shanghai and Beijing. Since Thursday, these flights have been carrying volunteer crews to repatriate the airline's customers, as well as its employees. A week earlier, on 22 January, the airline had already suspended its services to the city of Wuhanin quarantine since the origin of the epidemic was detected there.
In three days, more than forty companies have decided to suspend or significantly reduce their routes to China. In addition to Air France, British Airways and the Lufthansa group, Air Astana, Iberia, SAS, Turkish Airlines and Virgin Atlantic are suspending their flights this weekend or from next Monday. KLM, which had initially only suspended flights to Chengdu, Hangzhou and Xiamen, finally announced on Thursday that it would cease services to Beijing and Shanghai from Monday. Finnair, on the other hand, has decided to reduce its network. It is suspending services to Nanjing and its new Beijing-Daxing line. However, it will continue to operate its other flights to Beijing-Capital, Shanghai and Xiamen. In the Gulf, on 31 January, Emirates continued to operate all its flights to Guangzhou, Beijing and Shanghai. The same applies to Qatar Airways. As for AeroflotThe Russian airline is also maintaining its routes to the Chinese market, while allowing the travellers concerned to obtain a refund of their tickets if they so wish.
However, all the airlines are maintaining their flights to Hong Kong where passengers will be able to take a correspondence to at least a dozen cities in China, except Wuhan. Cathay Pacific and Hong Kong Airlines have coordinated their flights even though both airlines have reduced the number of frequencies offered. The same applies to Taiwan where the two carriers China Airlines and Eva Air are continuing to connect to mainland China with a lighter flight schedule than normal. Elsewhere in Asia, Thai Airways International and Singapore Airlines still operate some flights to mainland China.
Another important piece of information: passengers wishing to cancel their flights to Hong Kong and Taipei at the last minute will be able to do so without penalty.
