Delta cutting flights to South Korea; JetBlue waives US change fees

Delta Air Lines said on Wednesday (Feb 27) it could temporarily cut flights to and from South Korea in two, citing global health issues linked to the coronavirus outbreak as US airlines grapple with lagging travel demand.

From Saturday through Apr 30, Delta is suspending service between Minneapolis/St Paul and Seoul-Incheon. Delta will also reduce to five times weekly its services between Seoul and Atlanta, Detroit and Seattle through Apr 30. In total, Delta is shrinking its typical 35 US weekly flights to Korea to 15.

The airline's new service from Seoul-Incheon to Manila, previously scheduled to begin on Mar 29, will now start on May 1.

South Korea gets the most virus cases outside China and reported 334 new cases on Thursday for a total of 1,595.

On Wednesday, Hawaiian Airlines Inc said it could suspend its five-times-weekly service between Honolulu and Seoul-Incheon beginning on Monday through Apr 30.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and State Department on Wednesday both issued travel advisories urging Americans to avoid non-essential travel to South Korea.

With US flights demand slumping, JetBlue Airways Corp said that starting on Thursday through Mar 11, it could suspend change and cancel service fees for new flight bookings for travel completed by Jun 1.

The airline said the policy "was created to give customers confidence that they can not be charged any JetBlue service fees for changes or cancellations later given evolving coronavirus concerns".

US carriers have canceled all flights to China through late April, as the United States barred practically all non-US citizens who traveled recently to China from entering the United States and required US citizens who recently visited China to return home at among 11 US airports for improved screening.

At a news conference on Wednesday, President Donald Trump said he had not been imposing restrictions on travelers from additional countries with many cases like South Korea or Italy. He did not eliminate imposing additional travel restrictions at a later time if needed.

On Wednesday, the chairman of the united states House of Representatives Transportation Committee, Representative Peter DeFazio, and the chair of the subcommittee overseeing aviation, Representative Rick Larsen, wrote the US Transportation Department asking the way the government "plans to effectively prepare for the imminent arrival of a pandemic due to coronavirus COVID-19 on US soil".

Both Democrats said US airlines had expressed concern about the scope of requests by the CDC and expectations regarding airlines' assortment of certain inbound passenger data. The CDC has expressed concern about its ability to access information from the airlines.

On Monday, United Airlines Inc said near-term demand to China had almost disappeared and that demand for the rest of its trans-Pacific routes had dropped by 75 %.