IndiGo suspends Bengaluru-Hong Kong flights from Feb 1 amid coronavirus outbreak

As coronavirus threat looms large, IndiGo airlines decided to suspend its flights on the Bengaluru-Hong Kong and Delhi-Chengdu route effective from February 1, citing the high number of cancellations. While the flights on the Delhi-Chengdu route will remain suspended till February 20, IndiGo has not disclosed the period of suspension for Bengaluru-Hong Kong route.

"Due to China travel restrictions, we have seen a high number of cancellations from China on our Delhi-Chengdu route and vice versa,” said the airline in a statement.

“Therefore, we are suspending our flights between Delhi and Chengdu from February 01, 2020 until February 20, 2020. We are also suspending our Bengaluru- Hong Kong flight effective February 01, 2020," it added.

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India is continuously monitoring the situation in China and the Cabinet Secretary of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has reviewed the preparedness against novel Coronavirus and evacuation plan. Screening of passengers with travel history from China has been extended to 13 more airports and the ministry is procuring more thermal scanners for faster screening.

“Till yesterday, 155 flights have been screened (total cumulative passengers 33552). Samples of 20 passengers have so far been tested by NIV Pune.  All were found negative,” said the Ministry on January 28.

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Request for evacuation

Meanwhile, the Ministry of External Affairs has made a formal request to China to facilitate the evacuation of Indian nationals from Wuhan, the epicentre of the Coronavirus outbreak. The Indian Embassy in China is continuing to maintain close contact with its nationals in Wuhan city and elsewhere in Hubei. External Affairs Ministry spokesperson informed that the Indian Embassy has opened three hotlines to respond to concerns of those affected by this situation.

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(With PTI inputs)