Coronavirus Curbs Are Tighten On The Domestic Airlines – Australia and New Zealand To Cancel Their Domestic Flights
According to Sydney Reuters, the airlines of Australia and New Zealand cancelled their domestic flights due to rapid spread of coronavirus from Monday onwards and warned the passengers for non-essential domestic travels. The United Arab Emirates has also halted the airlines for about two weeks in the step towards controlling the spread of deadly coronavirus. In contrast, Taiwan and Singapore have banned the international transit of passengers from stopping the spread of corona through borders.
Due to the coronavirus, there is a drop in the demand for flights for more than 12% in the last week as compared to the previous year data of the same period, as per the data provided by the OAG. They further said that the scheduled flights are going to be cut off more in the future for some time until everything comes to normal.
Moody, a rating agency, estimated that the global capacity is going to fall up to 25% – 35% during this year, by assuming that the virus will slow down to spread till the end of June.
In the Telephone Interview by Andrew Herdman with Reuters, stated that “It is a war against a virus,” general director of the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines, told Reuters in a telephone interview.
“What we have to do is take care of the institutions and people’s livelihoods, the soft capital, so that we can restart effectively in a timely way when the time comes.”
The UAE, where all the major airlines like Etihad and Emirates airways carry the passengers worldwide, said that they are suspending all the passenger flights as well as airport transit for about two weeks in regards to controlling the spread of coronavirus.
The decision will be implemented or come into effect within 48 hours, they also said, however, the emergency & cargo evacuation flights are not having any such regulations and are exempted from serving the needy and current circumstances. Emirates published on their website that they are going to temporarily suspend all of their passenger airways services up to two weeks come in effect from 25 March as per the directions given by the government.
Singapore Airlines also decided to halve its international transit of the passengers before the Asian city-state was going to ban the traveling for the short-term travelers or visitors on Sunday.
They said there is a cut of about 96% at the April month-end, the most significant challenge ever faced by them for existence.
They also added that “Without a domestic segment, the group’s airlines become more vulnerable when international markets increasingly restrict the free movement of people or ban air travel altogether.”
Similarly, the Taiwan Airways has also announced the coronavirus curbs and stop the transit from China Airlines Ltd as well as of EVA Airways Corp, which marketed Taipei one of the convenient, comfortable, and affordable airways transit airport, competing with the air travels of Hong Kong and Singapore.
REX, Regional Express Holdings Ltd, that serves the remote towns of Australia, stated that they would shut down all the airways operations, except the northeastern states of Queensland that have subsidized routes, from 6 April, unless the governments have expressed their willingness to underwrite their losses.
John Sharp, the deputy chairman of REX, stated that “Failure to achieve any traction in this regard will see regional communities lose their air services for many months ahead and even after this is all over, we are afraid that some of the more marginal communities will no longer have air service.”
Thus, all the major airways took the decision to cancelled all the domestic flights due to the growing concerns regarding coronavirus.
