BEIJING (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 15th April, 2020) Chinese airline companies lost about 33.62 billion Yuan ($4.76 billion) in the first quarter of this year due to international travel restrictions caused by the coronavirus pandemic, Xiong Jie, a spokesman for the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), said on Wednesday.
"The epidemic of the new type of coronavirus has had a great impact on the entire aviation industry. In the first quarter of 2020, aviation industry losses reached 39.82 billion yuan," Xiong said at a press conference.
According to him, most of the industry's losses were encountered by airlines that lost 33.62 billion yuan in the first quarter of 2020.
In March, the CAAC ordered that each foreign airline maintain only one route to China with no more than one flight per week. Each Chinese airline is only allowed to maintain one route to any country with no more than one weekly flight, too. Foreign nationals, except for diplomats and several other categories, have been banned from traveling to China.
Thus, according to the agency, starting from March 30, the average daily number of international flights to and from the country has not exceeded 20 and 2,000-3,000 people on average entered the country per day.
