London Heathrow Baggage Handlers Test Positive for Virus

(Bloomberg) -- Coronavirus has reached Europe’s busiest airport, after two British Airways baggage handlers at London Heathrow tested positive for the disease.

The affected workers are recovering in isolation at home, British Airways parent IAG SA said Friday in an email. A small number of the luggage handlers’ colleagues are also being tested, a person familiar with the matter said.

The outbreak’s presence at such a heavily traversed junction is likely to escalate concerns about air travel after the virus’s spread from Asia caused consumers in Europe and the U.S. to pull back. The International Air Transport Association warned this week that carriers may lose $113 billion in sales this year, almost four times more than its estimate of the epidemic’s impact from just two weeks earlier.

“The welfare of our passengers and colleagues is our top priority,” a Heathrow official said in an emailed statement. A dedicated team from Public Health England, the health agency that confirmed the cases, is in place at Heathrow to respond to any incidents, the company said. The airport is also cleaning surfaces and providing hand sanitizers to workers “to protect themselves and our passengers.”

British Airways, the biggest operator at London Heathrow, has already scrapped all flights to China through April, and said it will pare back on destinations in Europe, Japan and South Korea. It’s also reduced services on its usually lucrative transatlantic route to New York, as companies restrict business travel and holiday makers postpone plans. Rival Deutsche Lufthansa AG has slashed capacity by as much as 50% in the most aggressive move yet by a major European airline.

Further Procedures

British Airways this week announced that it would scrap change fees on all new bookings made between March 3-16, to spur travelers to book tickets.

A spokesman for Public Health England said that Heathrow already has enhanced monitoring for certain flights and that while it won’t comment on individual cases, in any positive test the department conducts contact tracing, aimed at locating everyone the person has made contact with.

A spokesman for the Department of Health and Social Care, which oversees the National Health Service, said it would only look to impose extra measures if there was a continuous spread among the community.

To contact the reporters on this story: Siddharth Philip in London at sphilip3@bloomberg.net;Charlotte Ryan in London at cryan147@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Anthony Palazzo at apalazzo@bloomberg.net, Christopher Sell, James Amott

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