In the past few days, Chinese authorities have repeatedly tested arriving passengers positive for the coronavirus. This now has consequences, because some international connections have now been temporarily banned by the regime. The “compulsory breaks” are up to four weeks.

Various airlines and routes are affected: Dhaka-Guangzhou, operated by China Southern Airlines, is temporarily prohibited until November 30, 2020. Manila-Guangzhou, also served by the same carrier, is currently not allowed to fly for a week. Ethiopian Airlines' flights from Addis Abada to Guangzhou will be banned for a week. Those to Pudong have been banned since October 26, 2020 and have now received an extension for four weeks.

The Chinese Civil Aviation Authority stated that there are clear procedures: All arriving passengers must undergo a PCR test. If more than five test positive for the coronavirus per flight, the connection will be prohibited for one week. If there are ten or more infected people, the route must be suspended for at least one month. In return, airlines are allowed to expand their connections by two rotations per week if not a single positive case has been “imported” into China in an observation period of three weeks.

According to CH-Aviation.com, five other airlines have already received temporary suspensions. These are the Moscow (SVO) -Shijiazhuang route served by Air China, Tashkent-Xi'an operated by Uzbekistan Airways, Cairo-Guangzhou operated by Egyptair, Phnom-Guangzhou operated by Angkor Air and Baghdad-Guangzhou operated by Iraqi Airways. The four-week ban on the Manila-Shanghai (China Eastern Airlines) route is due to come into force on November 16, 2020. Turkish Airlines received an extension of one week on the Istanbul-Guangzhou route from November 30, 2020. Emirates has also already suffered the strictness of the Chinese authorities: the connection between Dubai and Guangzhou had to be suspended for a week from November 2, 2020.