The Effect of Deadly Coronavirus on the Airline Industry

There are 2,744 confirmed cases of Coronavirus in China. The place where it started spreading from is Wuhan, the sprawling capital of Central China’s Hubei province. Other examples of Coronavirus spread is seen in countries including Canada, France, United States, Nepal, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Japan, Vietnam, Australia, South Korea, and France.

China’s National Health Commission has confirmed the virus has Human to Human transmission, and the as of 27th January, the authorities have acknowledged more than 2,700 cases and 56 deaths. This has led a significant lockdown in Wuhan and other Chinese cities. The week-long lunar new year holidays are started of January 24th. This is the time of the year when millions of Chinese travel home to celebrate and International traveling is on rise. But this year’s festivities are seen to be cancelled because of the dangerous threat of Coronavirus spread.  

This had impacted the worldwide airline industry on a major scale. Authorities worldwide are most concerned about the flights to and from Wuhan, China. After the virus was identified here, the flights were being operated for several days, but now the airport is closed. The aviation sector of the China is flux as regulators are constantly in battle with how to contain the virus, whereas other flights in China are active.

Flights flying from China are regularly in fear of making sure that the passengers which they are carrying are safe and are not affected by the chronic coronavirus. To ensure this, airlines are taking essential safety measures as well. United Airlines has started stocking all of its Chinese flights, carriers flying to Chengdu, Beijing and Shanghai with two virus response kits, on for the inbound flights and one for the return. 

The response kits are stocked with 100 nitrile gloves, a bottle of hand sanitizer, a bottle of hand soap, 20 sanicoms and 20 face masks. The airlines have asked its crew members to take face masks and use on layovers for their personal safety.

The crew flying to the China of the airlines from around the world are scared of catching Coronavirus. China Airlines is also doing its best to ensure that its flights flying to other destinations are taking important measures and are not carrying any effected passengers along to maintain the safety and security of virus transmitting globally. The spreading of the virus is putting the airline industry under further pressure. In near terms, a lot of panic coming from the passengers and headed crews to or from China. This is making it difficult for the airlines to continue their flights to China and continue their operations serving the Chinese passengers, as they fear of spreading the disease to other parts of the world by carrying effected passengers.

In long term, there are chances the airline industry might be facing finance related issues. This can be in particular among the Asian Airlines which do good business in China. Wuhan flights is offering refunds to the passengers through February 29, which has made the company face huge losses. Airlines such as United has observed losses as well, with its revenue falling from 4 percent over the past 12 months even before the Coronavirus.

The fear of Coronavirus is spreading largely. Although, World Health Organization has declared the outbreak to be a public health emergency of international concern, and measures to find an effective solution for the problems are being taken. Yet we are a long way back to ensure immediate solution for this growing concern.