ATLANTA — Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines has announced it will operate on a nearly full schedule of flights from Europe to several U.S. cities through Sunday, to make sure customers trying to get home can do so before the president’s ban on flights from Europe due to the coronavirus pandemic takes effect.
The ban, to begin at midnight Friday, won't apply to Americans trying to return home — though they will be subject to “enhanced” health screening — or to citizens of the United Kingdom.
After Sunday, Delta said it will fly a significantly reduced U.S.-Europe schedule while monitoring customer demand.
The disruption to air travel is certain to have a ripple effect through economies, causing widespread losses for hotels, car rental companies, museums and restaurants.
In his address from the Oval Office, President Donald Trump said U.S. restrictions on people coming from China and other countries with early outbreaks of COVID-19 had held down the number of cases in the United States compared with Europe.
He blamed the European Union for failing to immediately stop travel from China "and other hot spots," which he said had led to clusters of outbreaks in the United States "seeded by travelers from Europe."
“After consulting with our top government health professionals,” Trump said, "I have decided to take several strong but necessary actions to protect the health and well-being of all Americans. To keep new cases from entering our shores, we will be suspending all travel from Europe to the United States for the next 30 days.”
Homeland Security officials later clarified that the restrictions would apply only to most foreign nationals who have been in the 26-nation Schengen area of Europe in the 14 days before their scheduled arrival in the United States. The Schengen countries, which do not restrict travel between each other, include Germany, France, Italy and Spain.
The ban won't apply to legal permanent residents of the United States or to immediate relatives of U.S. citizens. This category of people will be detailed in a formal proclamation, the officials said.
Airlines have been slashing their flight schedules, especially on international routes, to cope with a sharp decline in travel demand among fearful customers. Business travel is also slowing as companies impose restrictions on employee travel and major conferences are canceled.
An industry trade group warned that airlines worldwide could lose up to $113 billion in revenue from the virus — several times the damage caused by the 2001 terror attacks in the United States. Since mid-February, shares of American Airlines have dropped by nearly half, United Airlines by more than one-third, and Delta Air Lines more than one-fourth.
There are nearly 400 daily flights from Europe to the United States, according to FlightAware, a flight-tracking service. About 72.4 million passengers flew from the U.S. to Europe in the year ended last June, making it the most popular international destination, according to Transportation Department figures. About one-third of those passengers fly on U.S. airlines, the rest on foreign carriers. Trump didn’t mention restrictions on Americans traveling to Europe.
“This is going to cause a lot of people on both sides of the Atlantic to reconsider where they are going to spend their summer vacation,” said Henry Harteveldt, a travel industry analyst in San Francisco. “Leisure travelers will stay close to home,” while people traveling on business will be grounded by corporate restrictions, he said.
In January, the United States issued a similar ban on people coming into the country from China. That policy was later extended to people who had been in Iran.
The World Health Organization has labeled COVID-19 a pandemic, citing its alarming spread and severity.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.