China has defended its 'circuit-breaker' regulations as 'an important step to reduce the risk of cross-border spread of the epidemic.'
People trying to fly from the United States to China may soon be confronted with an unthinkable scenario: Starting next week, there are likely to be no commercial flights bound for the country as Beijing tries to keep coronavirus infections out ahead of the 2022 Winter Olympics.
Since June, the Civil Aviation Administration of China has applied a so-called"circuit-breaker" rule to international flights. That rule means that a flight is automatically suspended for two weeks if five or more passengers test positive upon landing in China. If 10 or more passengers test positive, the suspension period increases.
From December 24 to January 12, more than a third of the 9,356 international flights scheduled to depart for China - already a fraction of pre-pandemic levels - were canceled, according to data from Umetrip, an app developed by Chinese state-owned aviation industry IT provider TravelSky. "US airlines are concerned about the implications of a disruption and are continuing to assess the impact to operations," said Airlines for America, a Washington-based trade group that represents major US carriers, in a statement Thursday."We are in communication with the US and Chinese governments to identify a path forward that minimizes impact to travelers."
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