Airlines suspend more flights to China over virus spread

Bloomberg

Airlines across the globe suspended more flights to China, as governments clamped down on travel to help stop the spread of the deadly Wuhan virus.
British Airways halted daily routes to Beijing and Shanghai from London’s Heathrow airport, after UK officials advised against non-essential travel. The UK flag carrier said it would reassess over the next few days.
Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific Airways said it would cut capacity to China by 50% or more starting from Thursday, while United Airlines in the US said it would reduce flights to Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong.

No Fly
The global airline industry is starting to feel the impact of stepped-up efforts to stop the spread of the virus, which started in the Chinese city of Wuhan. With clusters now cropping up in countries like Germany, airlines have placed other Chinese destinations off limits, and oil traders have dumped contracts for jet fuel in anticipation of an extended slowdown.
Almost 9% of flights scheduled to or from China were scrapped between January 23 and January 27, according to research from Cirium, which analyses air travel.
The increased alarm has already had an effect within China, after the government imposed restrictions on travel during the Lunar New Year holiday, when millions typically head home to see loved ones. Domestic travel in China fell 7.4% between January 10 and January 28, People’s Daily reported, citing the Ministry of Transport.
Several South Korean carriers have also halted flights to Chinese cities, including Asiana Airlines, Jeju Air and Jin Air, while Finnair, Lion Air in Indonesia, Jetstar Airways’ Singapore operations and Air Macau are among those taking similar steps.
The number of confirmed cases in China soared to 5,974 — overtaking the country’s official count of Sars patients — while 132 people were reported to have died of the coronavirus. Germany said it identified a cluster of local patients infected by a woman from Shanghai who had been visiting Europe, a worrying sign as it suggests the potential for additional spread outside China.
When Sars became a global epidemic, it hit the industry hard initially but the effect was fleeting, said Jozsef Varadi, chief executive officer of Wizz Air Holdings Plc.
“It fell like a stone in the first month but then it started recovering and after four months everything went back to normal,” Varadi said on an earnings conference call Wednesday. “Probably this is going to be a better controlled issue so I wouldn’t expect the same impact as from Sars.”
China Southern Airlines could face the largest blow among the country’s “big three” carriers as it controls 30% of Wuhan’s seat capacity, with routes to and from the capital of Hubei province accounting for 3.6% of its seats, said Bloomberg Intelligence analysts James Teo and Chris Muckensturm. That compares with 1.5% for Air China, which is also vulnerable, the analysts wrote in a report.
Wuhan’s airport, which was largely closed on January 23, handles about 25 million passengers a year.
Passenger traffic at airlines such as Cathay and China Southern plunged 32% to 37% in the first half of 2003 because of the Sars pandemic, Teo and Muckensturm added. This time, “international airports’ swift implementation of preventative measures can help blunt the impact,” they said.