NEW YORK: British Airways, Delta Air Lines, and Virgin Atlantic mentioned on Monday (Dec 21) they may allow only passengers who test negative for the coronavirus to fly to New York’s John F Kennedy International Airport.
The decisions follow a request from New York Governor Andrew Cuomo that the airlines voluntarily agree to screen passengers on flights to Kennedy airport after the emergence of a highly infectious new coronavirus strain in Britain.
Dozens of nations, though not the US, closed their borders to Britain on Monday, causing travel chaos.
Cuomo, who shares oversight of the airport by state agency the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, has mentioned the US government also needs to stop flights from Britain, though he acknowledged that may come too late to prevent the spread of the new strain.
“I believe intuitively it is already here,” he mentioned, “as a result of if it’s been flying all over the world, it has been right here.”
The White House coronavirus task force met on Monday to discuss the possibility of quickly halting inbound passenger flights from the UK, but has not announced any decision.
British Airways, Delta, and Virgin are expected to start the screenings this week.
US airlines have already drastically scaled again flying to the UK, as well as the rest of Europe: American Airlines, for example, currently operates just one US daily flight to London out of Dallas.
United Airlines, which has issued a travel waiver for US flights to Heathrow between Dec 21, 2020, and Jan 17, is operating 4 daily flights to London in December however mentioned earlier this month it could cut these in half beginning in January. Last winter it operated 20 everyday flights to the UK.
