Coronavirus travel restrictions mean end of nonstop flights between RDU and Paris for now
New government restrictions on travel from Europe to try to stem the spread of coronavirus will mean the suspension of nonstop flights between the Triangle and Paris starting Friday.
The restrictions, announced by President Trump in a nationally televised speech Wednesday night, allow U.S. citizens to return from Europe, but only through one of 11 major airports where they can be screened for coronavirus. Because Raleigh-Durham International Airport is not one of those airports, Delta Air Lines is ending its daily RDU service to Paris after the incoming flight on Friday afternoon. (Charlotte Douglas International Airport did not make the list, either, The Charlotte Observer reports.)
Delta had already decided to cut back the number of nonstop flights between RDU and Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport from seven days a week to five. The change was to begin March 30 and last through May 20, according to spokesman Drake Castañeda.
Trump’s travel restrictions bar foreign nationals from entering the United States if they have been in one of 26 European countries in the previous 14 days. He said Americans could return from the continent with “appropriate screenings” and that the ban would not apply to the United Kingdom.
Trump said the restrictions would be in place for 30 days, but said they could be amended.
Delta had announced earlier this week that it would cut flights in the U.S. and abroad because of lower demand caused by concerns over COVID-19, the deadly respiratory illness that has spread to more than 100 countries. The company said it would trim capacity 15% to 20% on its trans-Atlantic routes and 65% across the Pacific.
Delta also said it would cut domestic capacity up to 15%, but the airline has not announced which specific flights it will trim from its schedule. Delta is RDU’s busiest airline, accounting for about a third of all passengers flying in and out of the Triangle.
RDU’s second busiest airline, American, also announced cuts in service because of coronavirus.
American said it would pare its domestic capacity 7.5% in April compared to its current schedule. Among the reductions in overseas flights, the carrier said it would suspend service from Charlotte to Rome through early summer and delay the start of seasonal service from Charlotte to Barcelona until early June.
A spokesman said Wednesday that American had not changed its daily nonstop flights between RDU and London’s Heathrow Airport. Then late Thursday, the airline announced that it is suspending its RDU-London flights from March 19 through May 6 as part of a broader reduction in international service in response to falling demand caused by coronavirus.
This story was originally published March 12, 2020 at 8:55 AM.
