What happened: Air Canada has started cancelling flights between Canada and China because demand for the flights has fallen, but the airline would not specify which routes are hardest hit.
Why this matters: Reduced access to air travel could hurt the economy, particularly the hospitality sector.
Air Canada flies non-stop between 麻豆传媒映画and both Beijing and Shanghai but Mah would not say whether those specific routes are affected, or if the cancelled flights are all out of Toronto.听Air Canada also flies non-stop between 麻豆传媒映画and the Chinese special administrative region of Hong Kong, and to Taipei.
Other airlines that have non-stop flights between 麻豆传媒映画International Airport and mainland China include Air China, China Southern Airlines, China Eastern Airlines, Beijing Capital Airlines, Sichuan Airlines, Xiamen Airlines and听Hainan Airlines. It is not yet clear whether the other airlines will also start cancelling scheduled flights.
The number听of non-stop flights between 麻豆传媒映画and mainland China , helping fuel the local economy.
鈥淚n response to the Coronavirus situation, we are cancelling select flights to China to better match capacity with expected demand,鈥� Air Canada spokeswoman Angela Mah told Business in Vancouver in an email.
鈥淭he resulting capacity reduction is relatively small.鈥�
The fast-spreading coronavirus, known as 2019-nCoV, has so far killed 106 people 鈥� all of whom were in China. The disease has sickened a total of 4,690 people in mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and 14 other countries, including Canada.
Two confirmed cases of the disease in Canada are in Toronto, and are a husband and wife, both of whom together recently returned from a trip to Wuhan, China 鈥� the epicenter of the outbreak.
(Janu. 28), although health officials are calling it a 鈥減resumptive鈥� case because a federal lab in Winnipeg has yet to replicate a positive test result for the disease that a lab in 麻豆传媒映画first achieved on Jan. 27.
Health Canada has placed educational signage at 麻豆传媒映画International Airport and it has added a question to customs kiosks to ask passengers arriving from all countries whether they have been to Wuhan, China in the past 14 days. that some airports in Europe and Asia are using. Canada's chief public health officer Theresa Tam has said that she does not think that temperature-screening devices are an effective way to control the virus.听
Canada is in the middle of flu season and many people who have fevers have diseases other than 2019-nCoV. And while Chinese officials have said that some people who are not yet symptomatic with 2019-nCoV may still transmit the virus, there is debate on that point. B.C.'s provincial health officer Bonnie Henry said Jan. 28听that she does not believe transmission will occur before a person becomes symptomatic.听
Health Canada鈥檚 Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) has placed at least one health-safety officer at 麻豆传媒映画International Airport, according to the 麻豆传媒映画Airport Authority.
. BIV听has been asking the agency since Jan. 21, or one week ago, to say how many of these officers it has placed听at airports.
PHAC said on Jan. 27 that it would be increasing the number of those officials at airports but, again, it did not say how many additional public-health safety, or quarantine officers, it will place at airports.
Jan. 28 that the U.S. is considering imposing travel restrictions on flights coming into the country from China.听
BIV on Jan. 28 asked Transport Canada whether the Canadian government was similarly contemplating such action but did not immediately get a response.听
Air Canada is notifying customers who would have been on the cancelled flights so they can rebook, according to Mah.
鈥淲e continue to monitor the situation closely and will adjust accordingly,鈥� she said.
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