Airlines offer fee waiver for changes & cancellations for flights to China

Major Indian and global airlines are witnessing a high number of flight booking cancellations to many cities of China amid the deadly coronavirus outbreak. IndiGo Cathay Pacific and British Airways have suspended flights to the mainland China. In addition,  Air India, Singapore Airlines, SpiceJet, IndiGo, AirAsia, Shandong Airlines, Air China, Cathay Pacific and China Eastern have waived off charges for any cancellation or flight change.

Indigo has suspended flights on Delhi-Chengdu route and the Bengaluru- Hong Kong flight effective February 1 till February 20, while Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific is reducing the capacity of its flights to and from mainland China by 50 per cent or more, from January 30 to the end of March 2020. Air India has announced that Reissue/ No-Show/Cancellation and Refund charges for all international tickets for travel to/from China till February 24 is waived off. Air Asia and Cathay Dragon have also extended suspension of flights to and from Wuhan and allowed credit account/refund for other mainland China bookings.

Air India and Indigo have enabled the waiver of ticket change and cancellation fee on the bookings within the next one month. Shandong Airlines is also providing waiver on full refund of tickets issued for travel to/from China. Whereas, Rebooking, rerouting and refund charges on Cathay Pacific/Cathay Dragon will be waived off for all tickets issued worldwide for confirmed bookings arriving to or departing from mainland China between January 28 and March 31.

IndiGo currently runs two daily direct flights to China, one is on Delhi-Chengdu route and another is on Kolkata-Guangzhou route. It will start a daily flight on Mumbai-Chengdu route from 15 March. Air India has only one direct flight to China and it runs on Delhi-Shanghai route.