Russia restricts flights to China over coronavirus outbreak

Starting from Saturday, Russia has limited air travel with China and completely suspended regional regular flights between the countries due to the coronavirus outbreak.

Flights from Moscow will continue to be operated by Aeroflot, Air China, Hainan Airlines, China Eastern Airlines, China Southern Airlines. At the same time, Russian airlines will be able to fly to China in a charter mode.

All flights from Moscow to the cities of China will be operated only from terminal F at the Sheremetyevo International Airport, however, while the rest of international flights on January 31 were transferred from terminal F to B.

Aeroflot will maintain a flight program to Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Hong Kong. Moreover, according to the Russian Ministry of Transport, “Russian scheduled carriers operating flights to and from China will change their operation mode from a regular to a charter regime.”

Prior to this, Russian airlines operated about 150 flights to China per week, while Chinese airlines operated about 40 flights per day. Until February 1, in addition to Aeroflot, direct flights between Moscow and China were carried out by airlines Iraero, Aurora, Yakutia Airlines, Ural Airlines, and S7 Airlines. The last two have already announced suspension of flights.

Meanwhile, Moody’s said in an analytical report on Friday that a possible pandemic of the coronavirus may become even more devastating for the global economy than the 2008-2009 financial crisis.

“A coronavirus pandemic would be even more of a “black swan” than the global financial crisis and Great Recession of 2008-2009,” the international ratings agency said.