The words of Donald Trump have repercussions. «To keep new cases from entering our shores, we will be suspending all travel from Europe to the United States for the next 30 days. The new rules will go into effect Friday at midnight», the US president said on Wednesday evening local time in a televised speech on the coronavirus epidemic. With his remarks he surprised everyone.
The massive entry ban had not been expected in the European Union. The EU had not been informed in advance, an representative told news agency Reuters. And so many flights to the United States still remain in the systems for the time after the ban comes into effect. Lufthansa stated: «We are currently evaluating the impact of the guidelines recently announced by the US Department of Homeland Security on our flight operations to the United States».
7991 flights a month affected
The entry ban is hitting the already weakened aviation industry hard. Because on transatlantic routes airlines earn good money despite tough competition thanks to the high proportion of business travelers. From now on, however, people who visited the Schengen area in thelast 14 days are no longer allowed to enter the United States - i.e. Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland. Only citizens of the USA are excluded.
Flights from these countries to the USA are therefore no longer possible. Figures from the aviation data provider OAG show the dimensions of this ban. Before the crisis broke out, a total of 7991 flights between the Schengen area and the USA were planned for April. On them 2.3 million seats would have been available.
Lufthansa Group suffering heavily
Donald Trump's measure has hit the Lufthansa Group particularly hard. It alone planned to introduce frequencies from its three most important markets to the USA in April 1498. In addition, there are 60 flights by Brussels Airlines from Belgium. But American airlines are also suffering heavily. This is because they are only allowed to take US citizens with them and fly with crews that have not been in Europe for 14 days and then fly them back immediately.
Not only the airlines are suffering. European airports lose thousands of flights - ans lots of income.
Trump's travel ban will cut airlines to the quick
