Philippine Airlines on 27 January 2020 scrapped change penalties for every ticket to seven Chinese cities, letting passengers postpone, reroute or cancel trips without charge until 9 February as the Wuhan-born coronavirus jumped borders and Manila moved to shield the archipelago from an outbreak it blamed on Beijing’s early secrecy.
Airline yields seat rules to stem virus flow
The flag-carrier’s waiver covers Manila-Beijing, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Jinjiang, Shanghai, Macau and Xiamen services booked for travel between 24 January and 9 February. Travellers may seek a full refund, shift departure dates or switch to another PAL destination once without paying the usual USD 50-150 change fee, the airline said in an advisory released at midday. Re-booked trips must be completed by 30 June and are subject only to fare difference if the new ticket costs more. Bookings made through travel agencies must still be processed by the agent, but PAL promised to waive its own service charge.
“We are carrying out this move to give our passengers with flights to and from China the flexibility to make adjustments in their travel plans,” PAL spokesperson Cielo Villaluna told reporters. The gesture mirrors similar relaxations already granted by Cathay Pacific, Singapore Airlines and Japan’s ANA as regional carriers try to halt a slide in bookings triggered by the widening health scare.
Disinfection orders kick in at Manila airport
Hours before PAL’s announcement, the Bureau of Quarantine and the Manila International Airport Authority imposed mandatory aircraft fumigation on every inbound flight that originated from any Chinese city. Crews must spray cabins and cargo holds while still on the tarmac, then present a disinfection certificate before passengers disembark. The same agencies ordered cockpits, galleys and toilets to be wiped with bleach solution before departure from Manila, a procedure that adds roughly 30 minutes to turnaround time.
Airport general manager Ed Monreal said the rules would stay “until the danger subsides” and warned carriers that failure to comply would mean an immediate return to the parking bay. Immigration officers have also been told to single out travellers with Chinese passports for temperature screening even if they flew in via a third country, a practice Beijing’s embassy in Manila has yet to publicly challenge.
Global rush to wall off travellers from China
The Philippines joined a lengthening list of governments that restricted or discouraged travel to the mainland after Wuhan mayor Zhou Xianwang admitted that his city had been slow to disclose human-to-human transmission. By 27 January Australia, the United States, Britain and Vietnam were advising citizens to avoid all non-essential trips, while Indonesia and Mongolia had cancelled visa-free access for Chinese tourists. Inside the European Union, health ministers scheduled an emergency meeting for Thursday as Rome declared a six-month state of emergency following confirmation of two Chinese cases in Rome.
World Health Organisation director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, speaking in Geneva the same day, praised China for “working hard to slow the spread” but urged every nation to “take all necessary public-health measures”. His carefully worded statement avoided direct criticism of Beijing, yet privately several Western diplomats told Reuters that weeks of official silence from Wuhan and Hubei province had allowed infected travellers to carry the virus abroad.
Philippine health system braces for first possible case
Department of Health under-secretary Eric Domingo told dzMM radio that five children who arrived from Wuhan with fever were isolated at San Lazaro Hospital in Manila and tested for the novel coronavirus. Results were expected overnight. The country has so far reported no confirmed infections, but hospitals have been ordered to set aside isolation rooms and the government is rushing 1,000 test kits from Japan after discovering that local stocks expired last year.
Economists warn that even a handful of cases could dent the Philippines’ USD 9 billion tourism receipts, much of it from Chinese gamblers who fly in to play at Manila’s casinos. “If the travel scare lasts three months we could lose half a million visitors,” said Nicholas Mapa, economist at ING Bank in Manila. Airlines are already feeling the pain: Cebu Pacific separately revealed that forward bookings from China had dropped 40 % since 20 January.
The archipelago’s biggest labour export groups are also watching nervously; some 2,300 Filipino cruise-ship workers are deployed in routes that dock at Chinese ports, and the foreign ministry has set up a hotline for families worried about repatriation.
PAL’s sudden generosity may soften the blow for stranded passengers, but it does little to calm broader anxiety over a virus whose reach now stretches from Toronto to Sydney. Until Beijing offers transparent data and Manila secures its borders, Filipinos will keep counting arrivals and praying the next cough they hear is only the common cold.
