Russia restricts air travel with China from February 1 due to coronavirus

MOSCOW. KAZINFORM Starting from February 1, Russia has limited air travel with China, due to novel coronavirus outbreak - regional regular flights between the countries are closed, flights from Moscow will continue to be operated by Aeroflot, Air China, Hainan Airlines, China Eastern Airlines, China Southern Airlines. At the same time, Russian airlines will be able to fly to China in a charter mode.

All flights from Moscow to the cities of China will be operated only from terminal F at the Sheremetyevo International Airport, however, while the rest of international flights on January 31 were transferred from terminal F to B, TASS reports.

Aeroflot will maintain a flight program to Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Hong Kong. Moreover, according to the Russian Ministry of Transport, «Russian scheduled carriers operating flights to and from China will change their operation mode from a regular to a charter regime.»

Prior to this, Russian airlines operated about 150 flights to China per week, while Chinese airlines operated about 40 flights per day. Until February 1, in addition to Aeroflot, direct flights between Moscow and China were carried out by airlines Iraero, Aurora, Yakutia Airlines, Ural Airlines, and S7 Airlines. The last two have already announced suspension of flights.

Evacuating Russian citizens from Wuhan and Hubei Province

Deputy Prime Minister, head of the emergency response headquarters for prevention of the novel coronavirus’ spreading to Russia Tatiana Golikova said earlier on Friday that the Russian government will begin evacuation of Russian citizens who are currently staying in the Chinese city of Wuhan and Hubei Province. «We are beginning evacuation of our citizens from Wuhan and Hubei. Before the end of the day we will clarify how many of our citizens are there. Preliminary data suggests that 300 people are staying in Wuhan and 341 are in the Hubei Province,» she said.