Donald Trump administration to block Chinese passenger flights from flying to United States

File Photo (Reuters)

Washington: The US President Donald Trump-led government on Wednesday (June 3, 2020) said it will block Chinese passenger flights from flying to the United States with effect from June 16.

The tensions escalated after Beijing didn’t allow the US flight services to resume between the two countries.

The official order read, “The US Department of Transportation, responding to the failure of the Government of the People’s Republic of China (China) to permit US carriers to exercise the full extent of their bilateral right to conduct scheduled passenger air services to and from China, is suspending the scheduled passenger operations of all Chinese carriers to and from the United States.”

The order applies to Chinese major airlines like Air China, China Eastern Airlines Corp, China Southern Airlines Co, and Hainan Airlines Holding Co.

The US-China relations have already tensed in the past few months after both the countries have gone into the war of words over the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.

Some wacko in China just released a statement blaming everybody other than China for the Virus which has now killed hundreds of thousands of people. Please explain to this dope that it was the “incompetence of China”, and nothing else, that did this mass Worldwide killing! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 20, 2020

A Reuters report said the Trump administration on May 22 accused China`s government of making it impossible for US airlines to resume service to China and ordered four Chinese carriers to file flight schedules with the US government. 

The Chinese carriers are flying no more than one scheduled flight a week to the United States but also have flown a significant number of additional charter flights, often to help Chinese students return home.

Administration officials have suggested charter flights have been used to circumvent Chinese government limits on flights. 

Earlier on January 31, the US government barred from entry most non-US citizens who had been in China within the previous 14 days due to the coronavirus outbreak but did not impose any restrictions on Chinese flights. 

Major US carriers voluntarily decided to halt all passenger flights to China in February.

Notably, China`s air authority in late March said Chinese airlines could maintain just one weekly passenger flight on one route to any given country and that carriers could fly no more than the number of flights they were flying on March 12.