Virus Check-Ups Mean Eight-Hour Check-Ins for Emirates Flights
Virus Check-Ups Mean Eight-Hour Check-Ins for Emirates Flights
(Bloomberg) -- Prepare for a long wait at the airport if you’re flying on Emirates from Beijing.
The airline said passengers should report to Beijing Capital International Airport eight hours before their scheduled departure time from Wednesday onward because they’ll be subject to additional medical tests because of the coronavirus.
Emirates will continue operations to and from Beijing as scheduled, but flights to Guangzhou and Shanghai will be halted from Wednesday until further notice, as directed by United Arab Emirates authorities, the airline said in a statement on its website.
Travel to and within China has been severely restricted as the coronavirus spreads from its epicenter in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province. There are more than 20,000 reported cases of infections and the death toll in China alone has reached 425. Two people have died outside the mainland, in the Philippines and Hong Kong. The U.A.E. has reported five cases of infection.
Commercial flights to and from Wuhan in central China have essentially stopped, while carriers from Delta Air Lines Inc. in the U.S. to Finland’s Finnair Oyj are suspending routes to the mainland. More than 25,000 flights to, from and within China will be canceled this week and international capacity will drop by 4.4 million seats a week, according to OAG Worldwide Aviation Ltd.
To contact the reporter on this story: Will Davies in Hong Kong at wdavies13@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Young-Sam Cho at ycho2@bloomberg.net, Angus Whitley
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