The spread of the coronavirus (25 deaths out of 22,400 cases as of 4 February) has prompted several African airlines to suspend or reduce their flights to China from where the disease originated.
By Fatimata Kane
Faced with a growing number of infected people, African airlines are no longer serving China, as are several airlines such as AIr France-KLM (until February 9), American Airlines (January 31 to March 27), Qatar Airways (from February 3).
Royal Air Maroc was the first to announce the suspension of its flights to Beijing on January 30.
The royal company mentioned “a sharp drop in demand for Casablanca-Beijing-Casablanca flights” and promised a resumption of air traffic by February 29.
Other airlines have interrupted or even reduced their services to China because of the coronavirus outbreak there.
This is alxo the case with Ethiopian Airlines which decided to reduce its flights to the Asian economic giant on Tuesday February 4.
The first African airline company had however decided initially to maintain its flights mainly to five cities (Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu and Hong Kong) stressing that China is a “strategic market” for its development.
Several other African airlines such as Egyptair, Air Madagascar, Rwandair, Air Mauritus have suspended their services to China because of the coronavirus epidemic.
Air Algeria, which had maintained its routes, decided on Tuesday, February 4 to suspend its flights to major Chinese cities.
Kenya Airways has taken a similar measure “until further notice”, in accordance with recommendations of the Kenyan Ministry of Health.
However, it has stressed that it will continue to fly to Bangkok, the capital of Thailand, the second most affected country after China.
For its part, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) said it is “closely following developments related to the coronavirus epidemic in Wuhan, China, and is actively collaborating with the World Health Organization (WHO) Secretariat, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
On January 30, WHO declared the coronavirus a global health emergency.
FKT/cgd/lb/as/APA