Updated at 4.20pm on Friday January 31
Virgin Atlantic last night joined British Airways and suspended flights to mainland China as coronavirus was declared a worldwide health emergency by the World Health Organisation.
The airline’s daily service between London and Shanghai will be cancelled for two weeks from today (Friday).
The last return flight is due to arrive into Heathrow on Saturday.
The airline brought forward the cancellation of flights from the weekend following the WHO declaration.
The suspension is not as long as BA’s cancellations to Beijing and Shanghai which have been extended until February 29.
The action coincided with the US State Department telling its citizens not to travel to China.
Meanwhile Advantage Travel Partnership has set-up a dedicated online hub for members to access health and travel advice from Advantage’s business partners in the UK and globally, as well as the WHO, the government, TravelHealthPro, Public Health England and Abta.
“Advantage will continue to update the coronavirus hub to ensure members are given the latest advice relating to travel to China and global destinations where Coronavirus cases have been reported,” the consortium said.
Latest statistics show that at least 213 people have died in China with almost 10,000 cases across the country.
Two cases of the coronavirus in the UK have been detected, the chief medical officer for England announced. They are both members of the same family.
The WHO reported 98 cases in 18 other countries but no fatalities. Most cases outside China are in people who had been to Wuhan, the city in Hubei province at the epicentre of the outbreak.
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A Virgin Atlantic spokesperson said: “The safety and security of our customers and staff is always our number one priority.
“After careful consideration of the ongoing coronavirus outbreak within China, Virgin Atlantic has decided to suspend daily operations to Shanghai for a period of 14 days.
“This decision is based on our close monitoring of the ongoing situation, coupled with a declining demand to fly, and we will continue to evaluate this over the coming days and weeks.
“We apologise to our customers who were due to travel to China for any inconvenience this will cause.
“A policy is in place for customers who are booked to travel to China and Hong Kong, to reschedule or receive a refund.
“Flights to Hong Kong continue to operate as scheduled.”
Air Mauritius, Air Madagascar, Kenya Airways, Royal Air Maroc and RwandAir have also suspended flights to mainland China.
Meanwhile, coronavirus caused a “substantial setback” in flight bookings in the normally busy Chinese New Year travel period, according to latest data.
China as a destination has also been severely affected by the crisis. While inbound bookings for the Chinese New Year period up to January 19 were 4.5% ahead year-on-year, they were 7.2% behind a week later.
ForwardKeys, which analyses global aviation capacity, flight searches and over 17 million flight booking transactions a day, said bookings from Europe fell from 1% ahead to 7.1% behind.
Outbound bookings from mainland China also slumped with a “slew of cancellations” after travel restrictions started being imposed from January 20.
“Although the vast majority had left before the travel restrictions took effect, the prospect of a record-breaking year was gone,” ForwardKeys said.
The company’s insights vice president Olivier Ponti said: “Our sympathies are with the people of Wuhan, who are hemmed in, mourning loved ones. It’s a ghastly situation.
“The economic impact is bad too. China is now the world’s biggest and highest-spending outbound travel market, so the presence of Chinese visitors is eagerly anticipated by the tourism industry globally.
“The economic impact could have been worse if the coronavirus outbreak had struck a couple of weeks earlier. Fortunately, most Chinese holidaymakers managed to get away in time and as of now, we don’t see the collapse in travel to China spreading to other countries in the region.
“However, with the crisis evolving rapidly from day to day and a growing number of airlines cancelling flights to China, close monitoring is needed.”
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