‘WHAT AIRLINES WILL EXIST?’: EU fumes at Trump’s ‘unilateral’ ban

European Union (EU) leaders have blasted US President Trump’s decision to ban travellers from the US as global air traffic takes a steep dive in light of coronavirus. 

On Thursday EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and EU Council President Charles Michel issued a joint statement taking aim at the “unilateral” decision saying the virus was “not limited to any continent.”

“The European Union disapproves of the fact that the U.S. decision to impose a travel ban was taken unilaterally and without consultation,” they said.

“The coronavirus is a global crisis, not limited to any continent and it requires co-operation rather than unilateral action.”

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The leaders said the 27-member bloc is “is taking strong action to limit the spread of the virus.”

In Brussels, EU officials fumed the US leader was “kicking a man when he’s down” and slammed the slow US response to the outbreak.

“If he wants the EU to be the culprit, so be it. It’s erratic, unilateral and creates a lot of problems that are unnecessary,” one envoy said.

“Trump is simply kicking a man when he’s down. He wants to appear to be in control, but in seven days it will be clear that he is not,” he said, in reference to the spread of the disease in the US.

“This is going to be serious. What airlines will still exist when this is all over?”

UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak, said he would be “guided by science” when it came to travel bans, despite the fact Britain is exempt from Trump’s decision.

“The advice we are getting is that there isn’t evidence that interventions like closing borders or travel bans are going to have a material effect on the spread of the infection,” he told the BBC on Thursday.
 

The number of flights taken in February this year was down 4.3 per cent on the number taken in the same time last year, according to aviation tracking site Flight Radar.

“The year over year decline comes as airlines cancel flights and reduce service frequencies in response to the spread of the novel coronavirus,” it said in a blog post.

“The largest drop in traffic occurred in China where the average number of daily departures from China’s 25 busiest airports fell from around 10,000 in early January to fewer than 2000 in last two weeks of February.”
 

SuperJumbo storage — airlines like Lufthansa, Qantas, and Korean Air are temporarily parking some or all of their A380s to weather #COVID19 impacts.

Use aircraft code ‘A388’ to track the A380 on https://t.co/TuvTVrdGpo. pic.twitter.com/FV6fEbHlTh

— Flightradar24 (@flightradar24) March 11, 2020

In the last month Italian flight departures have dropped between 65 and 95 per cent from the country’s busiest airports. Around 250 flights a day are taken between the US and Europe which could be significantly reduced under the travel ban, which takes effect on Friday.

Shares in airlines and cruise companies have been hammered in recent days in light of the news. JetBlue Airways CEO Robin Hayes said US airlines are facing a more significant drop in bookings than after the September 11 terror attacks.

“We’re seeing bookings come off to an even greater extent with this, you know, with this scare around the coronavirus and a lot of people also wanting to refund delayed trips as well,” he told US media.
 

IRELAND GOES INTO LOCKDOWN

On Wednesday US President Trump shocked the world by announcing he would cut off travel from Europe to the US to halt the spread of the disease. Italy has been one of the hardest hit areas outside mainland China, however more than 1300 cases have been recorded in the US.

Officials later clarified that restrictions would apply to foreign citizens who have been inside Europe’s passport free Schengen area for 14 days prior to arriving in the US. US citizens, permanent residents and their families will be exempt.

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The restrictions don’t apply to the UK, which has recorded 460 cases and is not part of the Schengen free movement zone. Ireland is also exempt despite recording 43 cases.

On Thursday, Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar announced a nationwide lockdown that will see schools, child care facilities, public offices and colleges closed.

Indoor events of more than 100 people and those outdoor involving over 500 “should be cancelled”, Varadkar said in a statement in Washington, where he was on an official visit.
 

BAN CREATES TRAVEL CHAOS

President Trump’s ban created travel chaos on Friday across the US and Europe, as North America woke up to the reality of the outbreak the White House has been slow to act on. For European travellers, the ban has thrown weddings and holidays into chaos at the last minute.

“We were going to get married in Las Vegas, with Elvis. It was going to be epic,” Parisian Sandrine Reynaert told AP. She had already engraved the date of the wedding, April 20, on a ring and would have to take a day off work to cancel her plans.

Retired French teacher Jean-Michel Deaux had also spent months planning a 3,500-kilometre roadtrip across the US in a two-month trip that would have taken in several states.

“We’ve been preparing this trip for years,” Jean-Michel Deaux said. “It was going to be a pilgrimage.” “I’ve been studying the maps every night,” he added. “I had already pictured myself on the boat.”
 

According to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control’s latest figures, more than 17,000 cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed across Europe, and more than 700 people have died on the continent. It has also been recorded in all 27 EU countries.

Several EU official meetings and sporting fixtures have been cancelled, while Italian tourist hot spots and town centres are virtually deserted after the country was placed in a lockdown to halt the spread of the disease.

On Wednesday, the World Health Organisation declared the disease a pandemic, saying it was alarmed by the severity of the spread but said it was still controllable if countries stepped up to tackle it.