There Goes Transatlantic Air Travel.
 

President Trump just announced restrictions on travel to the U.S from Europe. Live broadcast.

With the exception of the UK

Does that mean Europeans are ok if they leave from the UK or is it passport driven?

My daughter is in PRG right now, booked to come back PRG-BA-LHR-BA-JFK. Gonna be interesting to see how this plays out...

How does this work? Allowing travel from the UK surely nullifies the whole 30 day ban as Europeans can move into the UK without getting passports stamped and are then free to go to the USA from there? What confuses me is that the USA seems to be a hotspot of uncontrolled spread, the most recent cases in Australia are ALL people who traveled from the USA so WHY no travel ban on travel from the USA.

My thoughts exactly...
Sounds like a massive loophole!

It has to be a huge loophole. They’re also saying that US citizens and permanent residents are going to be allowed to return home. Thing is though that cargo is subject to the same restrictions so non UK airlines, and US airlines in routes other than UK, are going to want to suspend flights - how are these people going to return? CNN were just saying maybe there’ll be evac flights like China did, with the people going into immediate 14 day quarantine - my thinking is that’s what they’re saying without actually saying it yet.

From "It's Democrat Fake News" to lockdown in one easy step...

The ban only applies to the Schengen area. A proclamation to that effect has been issued:
https://publicpool.kinja.com/subject...nts-1842280740

I would imagine that the UK will now have to stamp the passports of visitors from Schengen countries. Otherwise they will have no way to prove to the US authorities that they left Schengen at least 14 days prior.

And it does not apply to cargo.

Fly into Canada and then sneak across the border. Southbound should work as well as Northbound has worked for the past few Liberal years. :ugh:

I stand corrected. It was the news presenters interpreting it incorrectly and me repeating it. Trump has since clarified on Twitter (where else?!) that it affects people, not goods.

Ban only for Non-US Residents, Citizens
 

This is being further clarified now. Trump should have said the ban is for non US citizens and residents and immediate families.

By my understanding it is not based on nationality but where you have been in the past 14 days. For example If you are Canadian but have been in France earlier this week you can not enter. If you are French but have been traveling through New Zealand for the past month you can enter.

Well since there currently there is no wall between the US and Canada, I guess folks from all countries, will be able to fly into Canada and then cross into the US by Rail , Road and walking. Perhaps a little like how the refugees have been entering Canada for the past few years fleeing from the US.

https://www.dhs.gov/news/2020/03/11/...l-proclamation

Homeland Security Acting Secretary Chad F. Wolf’s Statement on Presidential Proclamation To Protect the Homeland from Travel-Related Coronavirus Spread

Release Date: March 11, 2020

(WASHINGTON) Today President Donald J. Trump signed a Presidential Proclamation, which suspends the entry of most foreign nationals who have been in certain European countries at any point during the 14 days prior to their scheduled arrival to the United States. These countries, known as the Schengen Area, include: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland. This does not apply to legal permanent residents, (generally) immediate family members of U.S. citizens, and other individuals who are identified in the proclamation.

Statement from DHS Acting Secretary Chad F. Wolf:

“Protecting the American people from threats to their safety is the most important job of the President of the United States. The actions President Trump is taking to deny entry to foreign nationals who have been in affected areas will keep Americans safe and save American lives. I applaud the president for making this tough but necessary decision. While these new travel restrictions will be disruptive to some travelers, this decisive action is needed to protect the American public from further exposure to the potentially deadly coronavirus.

“In January and February, the Administration issued similar travel restrictions on individuals who had been in China and Iran. That action proved to be effective in slowing the spread of the virus to the U.S., while public health officials prepared. In the next 48 hours, in the interest of public health, I intend to issue a supplemental Notice of Arrivals Restriction requiring U.S. passengers that have been in the Schengen Area to travel through select airports where the U.S. Government has implemented enhanced screening procedures.”

I would surmise that you probably haven't spent a lot of time around the US side of the border?

If it is anything like Australia, Schengen nationals coming from third countries will be quizzed in detail about where they have been, and when, if they enter from Canada (or the UK, say). I have a Chinese colleague who went to the UAE for 14 days to avoid Australia's ban on entry. They did not just look at her passport stamp, they also wanted to see receipts and photos showing how long she had been in the UAE.

This is a supremely stupid action. The virus is already here.

Whatever, they'll figure that out in a couple weeks.

Anyone questioning why they did this? Sheer incompetence, nothing else.

You think America would allow Europeans across the Canada/USA border without passports? 🤔

I'm guessing planes, if flying, where mostly empty anyway. At least now it seems he is in control...

Sounds like this is the start of countries putting up walls and closing borders. Once the numbers explode in the U.K, I assume the ban will be extended to there too. Maybe the US and the U.K. need a tenth man? 😉

He is a laughable goon, saying ‘look at how in control we are not like those reckless European’s’. Does the US President not realise that the virus is already out of control and spreading in the USA and the only reason the numbers are low is because the US either doesn’t want too or can’t test en-masse. The US will be Italy on steroids in 10-14 days, what will the Don’s excuse be then. South Korea is testing 20,000 people per day and have a mortality rate of approx. 0.5%, the USA has tested around 2500 TOTAL and has a mortality rate of approx 4-5% which either means your treatments are inferior or the number of cases is woefully under reported. I know which one my money is on, on the plus side Donald got to have a 10 minute pat on the back session live on TV. Oh how the world currently needs a strong leader but all we have are chumps.

So the UK becomes the U.S. offshore quarantine/incubation area? Passengers from high-infection rate Schengen countries wishing to travel to the U.S. are effectively being re-directed into the UK for 14 days (or less if they're not honest to the U.S. authorities about point of origin), during which they may or may not be Coronavirus carriers.
If the latter, then no problem for the U.S. which just bans U.K. flight origin as well after our rate rises. Brilliant!

If you seriously believe the UK will still be on an exemption list this time next week then I want some of what you’re smoking..

Glad Donald, while busy with his crisis management, still had some time to get cosy with buddy Boris..
Never let a good crisis go to waste.

How does this work for pilots of any provenance, please? Does the ban not apply if they stay airside?

It is for the same reason Italy went in lockdown when the virus was already wreaking havoc: To spread the number of sick people over a longer time.

That way you will have a less intense ‘peak’ that puts a burden on the medical infrastructure.

It is not so stupid as you might think, it is the way to go according to experts. You will not stop the virus, most people will get sick, but spreading it over a longer time helps in relieving the pressure on your hospitals and clinics somewhat.

Aircrew, assuming they have a C-1, D, or C-1/D nonimmigrant visa, are exempt.

This is starting to get properly worrying, how is this going to end? There’s not an airline in the world that will survive this (without government support anyway) if this goes on for longer than a couple of months. When the problem abates how are we going to rebuild if there’s no airlines left?

The ban is for anyone who has been in Schengen within 14 days of travel. Doesn’t apply to cargo, though presumably does to cargo pilots.

You are right, absolutely. But to blame it on Europeans is poor taste and purely political. He even uses this “foreign” virus as an argument to build the wall.

drones!

if it does than Europe should immediately close their airspace for US cargo carriers in response. Good chance that those pilots have been in corona infected countries in the last 14 days as well.

So the country from which travellers to the US would have departed from bears the brunt of extra bodies all waiting for the exclusion period to end ... and could risk to 'funnelling' many more folk into the UK. The 'host' country would certainly find financial and health care resources stretched far beyond national projections ....

Although UK is exempt for now, this ruling will surely create many more empty seats for BA with all of their states bound connecting traffic from Europe now gone. Most premium corporate traffic was already gone.

The US has no national, integrated healthcare system. Under this administration they have cut the Complex Crisis Fund and the CDC funds to prevent global disease outbreaks by 80%. Very little testing for Covid-19 has been performed given the size and population of the country, they don't know what the scale of the infection is right now and factors such as the absence of health insurance (or the cost of getting tested for those that do) is just going to allow it to spread unchecked. Donald Trump believes he is a "stable genius" and that he alone can make decisions to protect US Citizens. Hmmm. The virus doesn't care about politics and DJT, it won't yield to presidential decrees.

To restrict international travel is not necessarily the wrong thing to do. Whether this is right measure at the right time is a question for the experts. To blame the virus on the EU, and then omit the UK from the travel restrictions when we are probably no more than 3 or 4 days behind France, Germany, Spain in terms of this outbreak is illogical and sounds very Trump. There must always be a scapegoat and today its the EU. I fear for the US in this pandemic, without a consistent, top-down, expert & evidence-led set of public health decisions, the US will have the greatest death rate in the developed world.

So the trans Atlantic flight restrictions are to protect those in the USA . "Protecting the American people from threats to their safety is the most important job of the President of the United State" Trump says on Twitter.

ere really ?? - just like sorting out gun ownership and protecting the 15,292 people in 2019 that were fatally shot dead in the country ,what a joke!

As a lot of widebodies will need to be parked, airport congestion is going to be a whole different problem.

I have heard from a source at BA that some of their 380s are flying around with 300 empty seats on some UK-USA sectors. This has probably just increased that to 400!