British Airways cancels all flights to China until 29th February due to coronavirus

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• Charlieface says:

  30 Jan30 January 17:49

  Regardless what BA say, if flying you to their nearest outstation is unreasonable, they must book you on another airline even if they have no interline/distress agreement with them. EC261 is still applicable here at least regards rebooking.

• Shoestring says:

  30 Jan30 January 18:08

  latest German joke topping the hit parade: The only known way to fight the virus is drinking one or two Corona beers with your meal!

  boom boom – bet that’s got them slapping their Lederhosen in pure mirth and delight

  now you start to understand why the New Year’s Eve ritual of watching Dinner For One is so indispensable

  • marcw says:

    30 Jan30 January 18:16

    You never know… you may acquire immunity against Corona virus by having some Corona beers 😉 After all, that´s the principle of vaccines!

    • Cat says:

      30 Jan30 January 19:11

      Attenuated Corona beer – it could be both a method of inoculation and a beer for pregnant women!

      I’ll get my coat.

• Qwertyknowsbest says:

  30 Jan30 January 18:49

  Just a thought. Are airlines undertaking any extra cleaning or disenfecting of aircraft, especially those from HK. Or is the risk of secondary transfer deemed unlikely?

  • maccymac says:

    30 Jan30 January 19:05

    I saw a clip on sky last night of Thai airways disinfecting their planes. I presume other airlines will have similar protocols.

    Here’s a link of an RT clip (couldn’t find the sky one sorry but same footage): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OP18y6VwwhU

  • Polly says:

    31 Jan31 January 04:34

    Here’s hoping the BA planes will finally get their deep cleans…
    here in Bali, you would have no idea there’s a possible death virus out there…all very calm, not a mask in sight, not that they do much good, but might protect touching face w hands etc.

  • Lady London says:

    31 Jan31 January 09:10

    Well we know that won’t be BA as their planes are notably filthy quite frequently on ordinary days

• marcw says:

  30 Jan30 January 19:50

  Plane on its way to Wuhan to collect British, Spanish, Hungarian, Finnish, + some other nationalities
  https://www.flightradar24.com/PLM471P/23b3f41e

  Will then fly to London where British Citizen will disembark. The plane will continue on to MAD where all remaining passengers will be put in quarantene for 2 weeks (like the british ones).

  • Aston100 says:

    30 Jan30 January 20:03

    I wonder where the Brits will be quarantined?

    • Donny says:

      30 Jan30 January 20:11

      Arrowe Park Hospital in the Wirral

      • Lady London says:

        31 Jan31 January 09:04

        So will the plane not lan in MAN instead of LHR, then?

        Is there any reason why quite a few of the recent years’ potential flu-type pandemics appear to have started in China, rather than anywhere else?

        • John says:

          31 Jan31 January 09:09

          More people looking living closer together and greater mixing of rich/poor people, rich people also have poor hygiene

        • Anthony Dunn says:

          31 Jan31 January 15:18

          Apparently because of the prevalence of open markets where wild animals are kept/sold alongside what we would consider more normal market produce. It’s the leap of animal-carried viruses from the wild environment into a human population which has no immunity that is what is troubling and dangerous. The Chinese authorities have been warned repeatedly about allowing these “traditional” approaches but they have yet, even after the more virulent and deadly SARS epidemic, to tackle the issue.

      • Alex Sm says:

        1 Feb1 February 08:39

        No pun intended?

    • BlueThroughCrimp says:

      30 Jan30 January 20:11

      The Guardian’s Josh Halliday has just confirmed the 150 Britons being flown out of Wuhan tonight will be quarantined at Arrowe Park hospital accommodation in Wirral, Merseyside.

      They will be staying in the accommodation block usually designated to NHS staff and are expected to remain there for 14 days.

      https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/jan/30/coronavirus-live-updates-china-death-toll-wuhan-evacuation-foreign-nationals-citizens-latest-news

    • Shoestring says:

      30 Jan30 January 20:13

      plenty of near-empty military hospitals – which would be rather undignified if they get treated as patients for 2 weeks but I imagine most of them these days have plenty of private rooms

      or military bases

      have a look at p5 UK Armed Forces trained requirement
      https://tinyurl.com/quly4sw – downloads small pdf

      UK Armed Forces numbers have declined from about 190K (2000) to 140K (2018) – there are plenty of empty buildings mothballed

      • Shoestring says:

        30 Jan30 January 20:14

        oh well, sigh 🙂

• TigerTanaka says:

  31 Jan31 January 07:29

  Once again a comment on how bad Flying Blue is but I have never seen a proper HfP analysis of the scheme, or any flight/lounge reviews of KLM/AF. It’s probably not on your radar if you live in London but BA isn’t always an easy option if you live in Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Hull or Teesside (or Leeds for that matter).

  The mileage earning might be mediocre and but eight cheap 4 segment short haul trips gets you gold (equivalent to BA silver). This means lounge access for all those business trips which is a big plus if you are hanging around at your local airport and then at AMS/CDG for your connection.

  • ChrisC says:

    31 Jan31 January 09:26

    There was review of the Teesside airport lounge recently so that’s sort of KLM related! Ditto Cardiff as well.

    I think to be honest not many HfP readers are members of Flying Blue so likely not worthwhile for Rob to write in-depth pieces about but Rob does post details of AF-KL offers so equally not totally ignored.

    The AF-KL boards on flyer talk are probably the best places to look for in-depth analysis of the programme,

• Yarki says:

  31 Jan31 January 10:23

  Rob your statement that “For anyone already in China, re-routing is being offered on Finnair, Qatar Airways, China Southern or JAL via any Chinese departure point. You will be forced to transfer to a BA service at the hub airport, so you cannot take Finnair or Qatar Airways all the way through to London.” is not correct.

  The BA guidelines say for AY/CZ/JL “Rebook onto a China Southern (CZ), Finnair (AY) or Japan Airlines (JL) operated service to/from any Chinese Mainland point to the UK or to connect with a British Airways operated gateway in Asia or Europe.” And QR/QR connection through Doha is permitted if “BA Doha connection is inconvenient then may rebook onto a QR operated service between DOH and LON”

  • Rob says:

    31 Jan31 January 10:52

    Thanks, will update.

• DavidB says:

  31 Jan31 January 12:54

  AA has a similar adjunct Business Extra program and those points, like those in the BA program expire 2-years from their first posting. I faced such a “hard” expiry of Dec 31st but managed to book a nice F r/t to SAN for a few days.

• Alex Sm says:

  1 Feb1 February 08:38

  Interestingly, American and Canadian airlines are still going there

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