China makes inbound travel easier, loosening moratorium rule
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Beijing Daxing International Airport Photo: Xinhua
China's
aviation regulator has decided to relax rules on suspending overseas
flights due to COVID-19 in a move many believe will stimulate inbound
travel.
Starting from Sunday, any flight with five detected
COVID-19 cases will be suspended for one week when the confirmed cases
account for four percent of all those onboard, and for two weeks when
the confirmed cases account for eight percent, the Civil Aviation
Administration of China (CAAC) said on Sunday.
The rule does not mention policy settings for flights with less than five confirmed cases.
"The
move aims to promote Chinese and foreign travel exchanges, and aims to
scientifically and accurately do a better job in epidemic prevention and
control," the CAAC said.
CAAC said the relevant policies will be adjusted in a timely manner according to epidemic prevention requirements.
Previously,
flights with more than five but fewer than 10 confirmed COVID-19
passengers were suspended for two weeks. For flights with 10 passengers
infected with COVID-19, airlines must suspend their operation for four
weeks, according to rules in place since May 1 of 2021.
Market watchers said the requirements for inbound travel are set to be loosened.
For
example, a Boeing 777, which can carry 305 to 440 people, is allowed to
carry 228 to 330 passengers according to the 75 percent capacity
requirement set by CAAC, so when the number of infected individuals is 4
percent of those onboard, the flight will be suspended for one week, a
significant loosening of the previous requirement, Wang Yi, a manager
responsible for air ticket data from industry information provider
VariFlight, told the Global Times on Sunday.
"In the past, the rule attached great importance to the number of
confirmed cases when it reached five, but now it doesn't," Wang noted.
The
new rules have cut the suspension period in half, which will help with
the resumption of international flights to China, especially for
long-haul intercontinental flights from Europe and the US with wide-body
aircraft, Lin Zhijie, an independent market watcher, told the Global
Times on Sunday.
VariFlight data showed that the average
utilization rate of wide-body aircraft in July this year was 1.16 hours
per day, compared with 10-11 hours in 2019.
In 2020, China
adopted "Five One" policy to curb imported cases, which allowed Chinese
carriers to carry out only one outbound flight per week on one route to
any country, and foreign airlines to operate just one flight a week into
China.
The country has suspended 768 international flights so
far this year to contain the transmission of the virus, Kong Fanwei, an
official with the CAAC, told a press conference on May 23 of this year.
But
the policy has slowly been tweaked and the regulator is now allowing
more airlines from home and abroad to resume international flight
services.
The CAAC said in June that it has been negotiating with
some countries to gradually increase their regular international
passenger flights to meet personnel exchange needs.
In July,
officials from the CAAC said that China will enhance communications with
countries to increase the number of international flights during the
second half of this year.
Meanwhile, the country also halved the collective quarantine time for
international arrivals to seven days from the previous 14 days,
providing new impetus for the outbound travel market.
Outbound
international passenger flights from China are likely to grow by more
than 200 percent month-on-month in August, VariFlight data showed, and
flights to the US in particular are predicted to grow fourfold.
Source: Global Times
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202208/1272363.shtml
2. https://www.coronavirus.gov.hk/eng/inbound-travel.html
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