{"id":7421,"date":"2020-01-30T18:06:56","date_gmt":"2020-01-31T00:06:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planesintheair.com\/?p=7421"},"modified":"2020-01-30T18:06:56","modified_gmt":"2020-01-31T00:06:56","slug":"american-airlines-pilots-union-sues-to-stop-china-flights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/?p=7421","title":{"rendered":"American Airlines Pilots Union Sues to Stop China Flights"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WASHINGTON\/PARIS\/SINGAPORE (Reuters) – A pilots union filed a lawsuit on Thursday seeking to immediately halt American Airlines U.S.-China service, as cabin crews worldwide voiced unease about exposure to the rapidly-spreading coronavirus which has killed more than 170 people in China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Sri Lankan Airlines staff wear masks at Bandaranaike International Airport after Sri Lanka confirmed the first case of coronavirus in the country, in Katunayake<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Allied Pilots Association, which represents American Airlines pilots, cited “serious, and in many ways still unknown, health threats posed by the coronavirus.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

American, the largest U.S. carrier, did not immediately comment on the suit, filed in a Texas court. The Fort Worth, Texas-based airline announced on Wednesday it would next month suspend flights from Los Angeles to Beijing and Shanghai, but continue flights from Dallas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The World Health Organization on Thursday declared the coronavirus outbreak in China a global emergency as cases spread to 18 countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lawsuit came as an increasing number of airlines stopped their flights to China. Air France-KLM, for example, suspended its Beijing and Shanghai flights after cabin crews demanded an immediate halt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Others that have dropped mainland Chinese destinations besides Wuhan, the outbreak’s center, include British Airways and Germany’s Lufthansa. Wuhan is closed to commercial air traffic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Virgin Atlantic also said on Thursday it would suspend its daily operations to Shanghai from Sunday for two weeks because of the safety of customers and staff and a declining demand for tickets, but would continue flights to Hong Kong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other major carriers have kept flying to China, but protective masks and shorter layovers designed to reduce exposure have done little to reassure crews.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thai Airways is hosing its cabins with disinfectant spray between China flights and allowing crew to wear masks and gloves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I don’t think it’s safe at all even with gloves and masks, because you catch it so many ways, like your eyes,” said one flight attendant, who spoke on condition of anonymity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“My friends also feel unsafe and don’t want to fly,” she said. “When we fly, we don’t sleep a lot.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Delta Air Lines and United Airlines are operating fewer China flights, with Delta offering food deliveries so crew can stay in their hotels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Korean Air Lines Co Ltd and Singapore Airlines are sending additional crew to fly each plane straight back, avoiding overnight stays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The South Korean carrier also said it was loading hazmat suits for flight attendants who might need to take care of suspected coronavirus cases in the air.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The outbreak poses the biggest epidemic threat to the airline industry since the 2003 SARS crisis, which led to a 45% plunge in passenger demand in Asia at its peak in April of that year, analysts said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Reporting by Laurence Frost, Aradhana Aravindan, Chayut Setboonsarng, David Shepardson and Tracy Rucinski Additional reporting by Caroline Pailliez in Paris, Josephine Mason in London, John Geddie in Singapore, Panu Wongcha-um in Bangkok, Jamie Freed in Sydney and Joyce Lee in Seoul; Writing by Jamie Freed and Tracy Rucinski; Editing by Marguerita Choy)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
FILE PHOTO: An American Airlines Airbus A321 plane takes off from Los Angeles International airport<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A pilots union filed a lawsuit on Thursday seeking to immediately halt American Airlines U.S.-China service, as cabin crews worldwide voiced unease about <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[797,3965,7890,89,5637,6117,8222,5992,5878,7929,2203,4957,5676,10169,1397],"tags":[539,129,420,118,625,1129,116,2345,2374,160,3945,728,624,1195,446,655,10030,5260,7192,5851,766,246,5625,1449,10164,482,1742,207,571,1915,3910,5805,2858,6548,3921,130,2859,2454,540,340,137,412,3159,10162,100,4544,187,9117,1288,10163,7450,1055,727,413,680,10165,4249,1878,190,10167,10166,1691,1658,1921,444,512,1013,2755,839,10029],"class_list":["post-7421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-airline-news","category-airport-news","category-asia-news","category-aviation-news","category-business-news","category-china-news","category-consumer-news","category-economic-news","category-environmental-news","category-european-news","category-finance-news","category-global-politics","category-international-news","category-news","category-stock-news","tag-air","tag-air-france","tag-airline","tag-airlines","tag-airways","tag-allied","tag-american","tag-association","tag-atlantic","tag-aviation","tag-based","tag-beijing","tag-british","tag-cabin","tag-china","tag-company","tag-coronavirus","tag-countries","tag-crews","tag-d-c","tag-dallas","tag-delta","tag-disease","tag-emergency","tag-exposure","tag-flights","tag-fort-worth","tag-france","tag-germany","tag-global","tag-halt","tag-health","tag-hong","tag-immediately","tag-killed","tag-klm","tag-kong","tag-korean","tag-lines","tag-los-angeles","tag-lufthansa","tag-news","tag-organization","tag-outbreak","tag-paris","tag-people","tag-pilots","tag-rapidly","tag-reuters","tag-seeking","tag-serious","tag-service","tag-shanghai","tag-singapore","tag-singapore-airlines","tag-spreading","tag-stop","tag-sues","tag-texas","tag-thai-airways","tag-threats","tag-transport","tag-transportation","tag-union","tag-united","tag-virgin","tag-washington","tag-world","tag-worldwide","tag-wuhan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7421"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7421\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7424,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7421\/revisions\/7424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}