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Airports emptying as COVID-19 spreads beyond region
February 28th 2020
Countries in the Middle East have imposed flight restrictions and suspended scores of international routes amid the outbreak of COVID-19 in the Gulf region. Read More »
In the past week, Iran has emerged as the new frontier for the virus, with the city of Qom, just south of Tehran, the focus of health officials’ attention.
The coronavirus has since spread to neighbouring Afghanistan, Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait and Oman. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) also has reported cases of COVID-19.
Scores of people also have tested positive for the virus in Italy and South Korea, including a Korean Air flight attendant.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) said as of February 25 there had been 81,109 confirmed cases of people testing positive for COVID-19 in 38 countries. Of those, 2,761 have died from the virus.
The UAE has suspended flights to all parts of Iran other than the capital Tehran. Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman and Saudi Arabia have banned passenger flights to and from Iran.
Bahrain has cancelled flights to Dubai and Sharjah in the UAE, while Kuwait has closed air links to Japan, Singapore and elsewhere.
Meanwhile, airlines in the Asia-Pacific have continued to swiftly rework their networks in response to the ongoing coronavirus outbreak.
On Monday, Singapore Airlines (SIA) announced more cuts to the flight schedules of both the parent airline company and regional wing SilkAir.
The additional network changes were on top of about 670 flights already cancelled to some 40 destinations in Europe, the U.S., Asia and Oceania, as well as the cuts to mainland China.
"This will result in a 7.1% decrease in the scheduled capacity (measured in available seat-kilometres) from February to end-May 2020," SIA said in a statement on its website.
"The SIA Group has taken swift action to mitigate the impact of COVID-19. We will continue to monitor the situation, and be nimble and flexible in adjusting our capacity to match the changing demand patterns in the market."
The airline group apologised for any inconvenience caused.
Hawaiian Airlines on Thursday announced it had suspended flights between Hawaii and Seoul between March and April.
It was also reported this week South Korea-based Asiana Airlines' senior executives had offered to return some of their salary as the carrier battles both a soft market and the coronavirus outbreak.
FlightGlobal said Asiana chief executive, Han Chang-soo, would give back 40% of his annual salary, while other executives would take a 30% cut and team leaders 20%.
The executives' reduced pay is on top of staff being asked to take 10 days of unpaid leave.
As reported last week, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) estimated the airline industry stood to suffer a US$29.3 billion hit to revenues due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
IATA said airlines in the Asia-Pacific were forecast to bear the bulk of the losses at US$27.8 billion.
