By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Transportation Department said Tuesday https://www.regulations.gov/document/DOT-OST-2020-0052-0078 it had approved the bid of China Eastern Airlines Corp to temporarily move New York-to-Shanghai flights over COVID-19 measures to a different Chinese airport.
The department granted China Eastern’s request starting March 31 to move existing twice weekly Shanghai westbound passenger flights from New York to China’s Fuzhou Change International Airport in Fuji province through the end of April.
The Chinese airline said earlier because of “evolving coronavirus pandemic control measures in the Shanghai region, China Eastern has been instructed” by Chinese aviation officials “to divert Shanghai-bound passenger flights arriving from the U.S. to certain alternate airports in China.”
China’s aviation regulator said earlier this month it would divert 106 international flights scheduled to arrive in Shanghai to other domestic cities from March 21 to May 1 due to COVID-19.
The affected flights include those operated by Air China, China Eastern, Shanghai Airlines, Juneau Air and Spring Airlines, the Civil Aviation Administration of China said.
On Tuesday, China’s most populous city tightened the first phase of a two-stage COVID lockdown, asking some residents to stay indoors unless they are getting tested as the number of new daily cases exceeded 4,400.
The financial hub of Shanghai, home to 26 million people, is in its second day of a lockdown authorities are imposing by dividing the city roughly along the Huangpu River, splitting the historic center from the eastern financial and industrial district of Pudding to allow for staggered testing.
Since early 2020, China and the United States have been at odds at various times about international flights between the two nations and restrictions imposed by both countries.
In January, the U.S. government said it was suspending 44 China-bound flights from the United States by four Chinese carriers in response to the Chinese government’s decision to suspend some U.S. carrier flights over COVID-19 concerns.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Jonathan Oatis)
