China’s penalty for Corona: Germany now also wants to cancel flights

Because of the pandemic, China is largely isolating itself. Beijing is imposing fines and suspending flight connections when five corona-positives have been brought into the country. Germany now wants to defend itself.

The Foreign Office in Berlin will cancel flights of Chinese airlines on the same routes that Beijing canceled German airlines on board due to alleged corona cases. The federal government considers the Chinese penalties to be competition-distorting.

No violations by German airlines

In a statement to the ARD it says: According to the information available, there are no violations of German airlines against the infection protection requirements of the Chinese authorities. And they are strict: If five passengers test positive after arriving in China, the aviation authority removes the connection from the flight plan for 14 days. With ten or more cases it is even four weeks.

Penalty: More than 500 flights suspended

Lufthansa has been affected twice on the Frankfurt-Shanghai route since 2020. Condor also twice from Frankfurt to Xi’an. Because of Corona, China has suspended more than 500 flights as a penalty – Austrian Airlines, Swiss and KLM are also affected.

But: China is apparently just as tough on its own airlines. To ARD-Information hit a third of all canceled connections by Chinese airlines – including Asia’s industry leader China Southern.