Airlines Will Be Punished If Passengers Have COVID-19 Under China’s New System For Flight And Travel Restrictions

Will Horton
The world’s different responses to coronavirus create disparities in current safety and risk protocols. Meshing those standards is increasingly contentious as countries try to stitch back together and resume travel.

China’s cautious reopening will see it implement a reward and punishment system for global airlines.

If five passengers test positive for COVID-19 on a route into China, the airline will have to suspend the flight for a week under new CAAC rules effective June 8. If infections reach 10 passengers, the airline will have to suspend the route for four weeks.

Infections are counted in aggregate, and are not limited to a specific day’s flight. The counter does not reset with each new flight.

That so-called “fused measure” is accompanied with an incentive. Airlines can increase flights if they carry zero COVID-19 positive passengers on a route for three consecutive weeks.

China wants to increase connectivity while limiting imported coronavirus cases and preserving the country’s low, almost zero, infection rate.

The growth incentive allows airlines to expand from one flight a week to two. There are no standard provisions to increase beyond two weekly flights, but China may selectively expand services.

“It is possible to increase the flight growth of some eligible countries moderately,” a CAAC notice said. It lightly sketched determining factors as “controllable risks and the ability to receive support.”

Countries like the U.S. and U.K. may debate how they responded to COVID-19 and what their ongoing risks are. But it is clear their responses, however well locally perceived, are far short of the achievements in Australia, China, and South Korea.

China’s measures and plans for an Australia-New Zealand “travel bubble” create the patchwork re-opening feared by industry groups like IATA, which instead prefer a standard approach that is easier to follow than managing every country’s nuanced rules.

Yet lobbying groups seem to have lost their voice having failed to give adequate advice in the early days of the outbreak.

Trade groups are often based in or taking directions from countries with weak coronavirus responses. The patchwork re-opening they argue against is often designed to limit exposure to them.

Chinese and foreign airlines have been eager to increase passenger flights. Carriers from Qatar, South Korea and Turkey planned to serve multiple Chinese cities over the summer. That is higher than China’s allowance permitting one weekly flight on just one route.

Airlines are still capped at one route under the new “fuse and incentive” policy.

The largest public challenge is from the U.S. Delta Air Lines and United Airlines want to fly multiple daily flights across numerous routes, far above the one weekly rule.

The U.S. on Wednesday said it would ban Chinese airlines’ passenger flights unless China revised its policy. The fuse and incentive policy is a change but far short of what the U.S. demands.

Countries from Australia to Canada to Singapore have been testing arriving international passengers for COVID-19. They currently only allow residents and are banning visitors. Some countries like Greece and the Maldives will accept visitors but test them upon arrival.

Emirates is screening passengers for COVID-19 as they leave Dubai airport. The airline is using a rapid test that produces results within 10 minutes, far shorter than the hour- or day-long tests some countries use for arriving passengers.– Forbes

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