FILE PHOTO: CEO of Lufthansa, Carsten Spohr, delivers a speech during the opening ceremony of the new Berlin-Brandenburg Airport (BER) “Willy Brandt” in Schoenefeld, near Berlin, Germany October 31, 2020. Tobias Schwarz/Pool via REUTERS
October 3, 2021
BOSTON (Reuters) – Lufthansa is very concerned about coronavirus travel and border restrictions in China hurting the German air carrier’s recovery, its Chief Executive Carsten Spohr said on Sunday.
China sharply reduced transport links with other countries as the coronavirus, which first emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019, spread around the world.
Visitors to mainland China, regardless of nationality, face tough requirements prior to travel including multiple medical tests and stringent quarantine rules upon entry.
Airlines, both Chinese and non-Chinese, also face the risk of their flight routes being suspended temporarily if a certain number of infected passengers are detected on arrival in China.
“We are not only slowing down our recovery at Lufthansa, which is also my concern, we are slowing down the recovery of the economic relations between China and Germany,” Spohr told reporters on the sidelines of a conference of airlines group IATA in Boston.
(Reporting by Rajesh Kumar Singh; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
