COVID-19: Trump bans China flights

From Wednesday 16 June 2020 the Trump administration is suspending passenger flight to the USA by Chinese Airlines (excluding Hong Kong and Taiwan based airlines). In typical Trump fashion, this is tit-for-tat, sorry, I mean retaliation for China’s barring of USA carriers from re-entering China.

Actually it’s not an outright ban, but in true tit-for-tat style, allows a one-for-one – one Chinese carrier flight for each USA flight China approves. All this is because of bilateral tensions which have seen China introduce a fairly arbitrary restriction on USA carriers flying into China.

China is restricting flights by USA carriers into China to the equivalent of schedules USA airlines were running as of 12 March. Since the USA ‘banned’ flights between China in early February, this effectively sets the number of flights allowed to zero.

What are we – 3 year olds?

Airlines affected

The Department of Transport ruling will affect Air China, China Eastern, China Southern and Xiamen Airlines, and only their passenger flights, not cargo flights, particularly important given the need for pandemic related goods such as sanitiser, PPE, masks and ventilators.

USA Airlines; Delta, American and United had plans to resume flights to China at different dates mainly in June. American was plumbing for October.

To give you an idea of the scale of this order, prior to the pandemic, there were about 325 services per week between the USA and China. That dropped to 20 run by the 4 Chinese carriers in mid-February once pandemic panic was setting in.

2PAXfly Takeout

The aviation industry has a difficult road ahead when it comes to sustainability. It’s going to require a relative revolution in technology, with ‘electric planes’ or hydrogen planes, or some form of jet engine that doesn’t require a carbon based fuel. And that is going to require the development of an alternative to jet engines probably.

It’s a big ask. It will take time to develop.

This move to home grown and manufactured SAF is a first step – maybe even a baby step in a very long road of innovation. In the long run, US$200 million won’t even touch the sides.

OMG, why do we have children running the two major world powers?

This argy-bargy will resolve itself once both leaders decide to behave like adults, or economic necessity sets in.

It’s a pity we are living in a time of crisis where our leaders are more interested in re-election or life long rule, than either the welfare of their people or economies.

I’m going to watch some trashy reality program on TV, given that is what international politics seems to have turned into.