UPDATE 1-Finnair cancels some China flights as virus fears spread


Reuters | Helsinki | Updated: 28-01-2020 19:13 IST | Created: 28-01-2020 18:45 IST
UPDATE 1-Finnair cancels some China flights as virus fears spread
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Finnish airline Finnair said it would suspend its routes to Nanjing and Beijing's Daxing airport until the end of March, the first European airline to cancel flights to mainland China amid growing fears about the spread of a new flu-like virus.

The move comes after Beijing suspended international group travel from the country as a part of its efforts to control the outbreak of the coronavirus, the airline said. On Tuesday, the death toll rose to 106 people. It will affect the airline's three weekly flights between Finland's capital Helsinki and the Chinese capital Beijing and two weekly routes to Nanjing in Jiangsu province.

They have a higher proportion of group travelers on them than their other routes. It estimated that the direct financial impact of group cancellations, ticket refunds and flight cancellations for February will be moderate.

"These cancellations are needed to manage the impacts of the recent suspension of group travel by Chinese authorities, which have a pronounced impact on the load factors of our Beijing Daxing and Nanjing flights," said Jaakko Schildt, chief operating officer of Finnair. The airline has become popular with travelers between Europe and Asia because the flight time with a stopover in Helsinki is shorter than layovers in other parts of Europe and the Middle East.

Airlines have been canceling and adjusting schedules as a growing number of countries raise travel warnings not just to Hubei province where the new coronavirus broke out, but also to the rest of mainland China. Nanjing is 600 kilometers northeast of Wuhan, the epicenter of the virus outbreak in Hubei province, while Beijing is 1,200 km north of Wuhan.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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