Indian carriers suspend flights to Hong Kong

NEW DELHI: Indian carriers have now cancelled all their flights to China in wake of the coronavirus epidemic. Air India Delhi-Hong Kong, the only remaining flight by an Indian carrier between the two countries, is being suspended from February 8 to March 28, 2020.

On Tuesday, AI tweeted it is “suspending its operations to Hong Kong in view of the coronavirus situation after flying AI-314 on Feb 7 from Delhi to Hong Kong and AI-315 from Hong Kong to Delhi on Feb 8.” With this announcement, all flights by Indian carriers to China will be suspended after Friday. AI had earlier suspended its six-times-weekly Mumbai-Delhi-Shanghai flight from January 31. The frequency of Air India’s daily Delhi-Hong Kong was reduced to thrice-weekly from January 31 and has now been suspended till March 28. IndiGo, the only other Indian carrier that flies to China, has suspended all its three daily flights to the country — Delhi-Chengdu, Bengaluru-Hong Kong and Kolkata-Guangzhou.

Among Chinese carriers, Shandong Airlines and Air China have suspended their flights to India.

In a statement, Cathay Pacific said: “As of now, all Cathay Pacific and Cathay Dragon flights out of India are operating as per schedule. From India, we operate 49 direct flights to Hong Kong per week. Cathay Pacific flies out of four (places) — Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Chennai. Cathay Dragon flies out of Bangalore and Kolkata.”