The coronavirus epidemic is beginning to take its toll on the global airline industry, at least for now on airline operations to or from China. British Airways, which usually operates daily flights to Beijing and Shanghai from London Heathrow, has announced a suspension of all flights to and from mainland China following a directive issued at state level. The Indonesian airline Lion Air announced that it has done the same, following a recommendation from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Lufthansa, Swiss and Austrian Airlines also announced on Wednesday January 29 that it would cancel all flights to and from China. KLM and Iberia joint this decision.

As for French carriers, Air France who operates 10 weekly flights to Beijing and 13 weekly flights to Shanghai, at first decided to reduce these services to one daily flight. But on January 30, it finally suspended its flight plan to China until February 9 — including the three weekly flights to Wuhan since January 22. Air Austral for its part announced the suspension of its operations between Reunion and Canton from February 8 to March 1.

For its part, the Hong Kong company Cathay Pacific announced the suspension of its flights to the rest of China from January 10 until the end of March. Besides, some carriers such as the Scandinavian airline SAS chose to only maintain their service to Hong Kong.