AIR CANADA SUSPENDS ALL DIRECT FLIGHTS TO CHINA

Air Canada is halting all direct flights to China following the federal government’s advisory to avoid non-essential travel to the country due to the coronavirus epidemic. The abrupt suspension – effective Thursday and slated to last until Feb. 29 – threatens to dent revenues as the airline scrambles to regroup amid the disruption.

“It definitely will have a commercial impact. There’s no doubt about it. China is a major market for Air Canada,” said John Gradek, a lecturer at McGill University and head of its Global Aviation Leadership Program.

Canada’s largest airline makes 33 flights a week to Beijing and Shanghai from Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal. The potential for longer-term harm looms if travel demand stays near ground level into the spring.

More than 50 million people in 17 cities are now under under lockdown as China rolls out quarantine measures unprecedented in modern history.

A fluid situation

Air Canada said Wednesday it had begun to cancel select flights as customers delayed trips and called off travel plans due to fears of the spreading epidemic.

“Three or four hours later, everything shut down,” Gradek said. “It kind of shows you the degree to which this is a very, very fluid situation.”

Affected customers will be notified and offered options that include travel on other carriers where available, or a full refund, Air Canada said.

The carrier is also waiving rebooking fees for flights that go through a partner airline to the Chinese city of Wuhan, the epicentre of the virus, until March 29.

Canada has looked increasingly to East Asia as a growth market, with the number of annual visitors to Canada from China shooting up by a factor of 10 since 2000 to 757,000 in 2018.

Air Canada has seen its shares fall by about 10 percent since authorities on Jan. 20 confirmed human-to-human transmission of the illness, which has caused 132 deaths and infected more than 6,000 people.

A regrettable situation

The Montreal-based carrier said in a statement that it remains in consultation with the Public Health Agency of Canada, Transport Canada, and Global Affairs and will adjust its schedule as appropriate.

“Air Canada regrets this situation and apologizes for the serious disruption to our customers’ travel plans.”

China Southern Airlines and China Eastern Airlines, which fly into Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal, have not announced plans to halt flights to Canada.

Canada prepares to fly citizens out

Meanwhile Canada has a plane being prepared to fly Canadians out of the province in China at the centre of an outbreak of a new coronavirus, Foreign Affairs Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said Wednesday.

The government is also advising all Canadians to avoid “non-essential” travel to China and has also scaled back its diplomatic presence in the country because of the outbreak.

The next step in the evacuation process is to secure co-operation from China to assist the 160 Canadians who have requested some form of help, Champagne said. Not all of them want to leave, he emphasized in an appearance on Parliament Hill.

Quarantine?

China has all but sealed off one of its central provinces where the novel coronavirus was first detected. The virus causes respiratory symptoms similar to the common cold, but it can be deadly in very severe cases.

Health Minister Patty Hajdu said the government still has to decide what will happen with the Canadians who leave China, so as to prevent any spread of the illness.

Asked whether returning travellers would be held in quarantine, Hajdu said, “We will always work to ensure the health of Canadians, whether they’re abroad or whether they’re here. So, yes what we’re looking at is a scenario where we have all the measures in place to protect Canadians from exposure to the virus. Having said that, that’s about as far as I can go.”