Source: Global Times
According to media reports, the crew members concerned have said that the return to the flight was caused by the Chinese side's ban on flight entry, which is inconsistent with the facts. The Chinese Embassy in the United States answered reporters' questions on the recent cancellation and return of Sino-US flights on the 28th, and made it clear that the incident had brought huge losses to Chinese passengers, and the Chinese embassy and consulates in the United States had made solemn representations. Last week, a Delta Air Lines flight from Seattle to Shanghai took off after several twists and turns, but turned back in the middle of the way, and afterwards the US company "threw the pot" at China's epidemic prevention policy. A passenger who personally experienced the incident told the Global Times reporter on the 28th that Delta Air Lines' statement was a slander and disrespect for China, and its arbitrary approach led to the difficulties of many stranded passengers. Delta's rhetoric is clearly sophistry, and the root cause of the "accident" lies in the company itself. Delta has canceled hundreds of flights in the past few days, which is a challenge for other major U.S. carriers. Due to the surging trough of the Olmirkron mutation, American Airlines is facing a serious shortage of manpower, as are industries such as catering and retail. On the 27th, the number of new confirmed cases in the United States exceeded 400,000 in a single day. However, in order to allow more Americans to return to work faster and minimize the risk of mass labor shortages, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued a new epidemic prevention recommendation to halve the isolation time of asymptomatic infected people.
Delta Air Lines Turnback (Courtesy of US Media Interviewee)
The Chinese Embassy in the United States spoke out
According to the website of the Chinese Embassy in the United States on the 28th, the embassy spokesman said that the statement of the American Airlines side is "inconsistent with the facts." "Our embassy has noticed that the recent shortage of manpower in various AIRLINES in the United States has been prominent, and the crew members have been afraid of the occurrence of attendance under the epidemic, resulting in the large-scale cancellation of domestic and international flights in the United States. The Chinese embassies and consulates in the United States are communicating with relevant airlines to actively understand specific technical problems and explore solutions to avoid the recurrence of similar incidents. ”
Delta's flight DL287 (DL9891) continued to ferment over the past two days. On the 27th, Delta Air Lines issued a statement saying that the new regulations implemented by Shanghai Pudong Airport need to significantly extend the stay time of flights on the ground, "which is not operationally feasible for Delta Air Lines", and the flight was forced to turn back. On the 28th, Delta Air Lines repeated this excuse in its reply to the Global Times reporter. But according to Hong Kong's South China Morning Post, staff at Pudong International Airport said the cancellation of Delta flights had nothing to do with the airport, and that other flights arrived normally that day, including some U.S. flights.
Some domestic media quoted Delta Air Lines sources as explaining that Delta's Sino-US flights are operated by two sets of crew members, one from the United States to Seoul Incheon, and the other from Incheon to Pudong-Incheon. Such a setting can meet the requirements of entry epidemic prevention, but the follow-up China-South Korea segment has always been stuck in the upper limit of the crew's working hours, and recently Shanghai has increased the killing time, and if the entire flight segment is overtime, the crew will not be able to complete the flight. The Federal Aviation Administration and unions have strict working hours requirements for pilots and crews.
Some civil aviation industry insiders analyzed the Global Times reporter that Delta's flight first arrived in Seoul and then flew to Pudong, because the working hours of a single crew have clear restrictions, and the flight usually needs to change crews in Seoul. Due to the widespread understaffing of American airlines, Delta May not have enough replacements in Seoul to decide to return the plane en route.
"Leaping Earth" (net name), one of the passengers on the flight, told the Global Times reporter that Delta Air Lines blindly pushed the responsibility to China's policy changes, which is a slander and disrespect for China. According to her understanding, the relevant person in charge of Seattle Airport admitted that on the 21st, it had been learned that China had requested the arrival of the flight for 3 hours to disinfect. Delta can cancel the flight early instead of returning hours after the flight on the grounds that the Chinese side does not accept the passenger's health code.
The latest email response from Delta Air Lines provided by Leap Earth to reporters shows that the latter still insisted that the return was caused by the Chinese side changing the disinfection requirements for the flight. Delta also said it was rebooking tickets for passengers and processing refunds for those who did not continue their travel.
Troubled Chinese passengers
"Leap Earth" told the Global Times reporter that the passengers on this flight 9 became Chinese citizens, most of them were fresh graduates, a few were visiting scholars and staff and tourist visa holders. Delta's practices may result in some passengers being unable to enter the United States in the future. According to her understanding, there are currently two types of stranded passengers: those who have a home in the United States can go home first, Delta Air Lines said that it will arrange flights after mid-January; no home can only take one step to see, and they are still stranded at the airport and need to book their own hotels.
Another passenger on this flight, "zhhy" (screen name), revealed online that changing the flight plan to return to the United States in the middle of the flight was an accident, and there was no need to re-enter the country according to the relevant laws of the United States, and the plane stopped directly in the domestic terminal after returning to Seattle. But then Delta's attitude was very dissatisfied, and the hotel was arranged two days ago, and then only $30 a day of meal coupons.
A report by the "Voice of America" on the 27th said that the flight was postponed many times from before take-off to turning back halfway after take-off, which not only brought great frustration and unhappiness to the 168 passengers on the plane, but also put those returning students in trouble. Some people come from other cities in the United States, and some people have returned their original rented apartments and sold their cars. The country cannot be returned, and there is no home in the United States, and some are still facing the problem of expiring visas and may be illegally stranded in the United States.
This flight is already "unexpected". According to the "leap earth", the captain has notified "a passenger is unwell", "aircraft parts need to be inspected for renovation", "weather reasons" and other reasons for postponement, and later said that these "small accidents" caused the crew to overtime work, and take-off will violate federal laws. After changing the flight number and finally departing, he made excuses to return halfway through.
Delta originally operated four U.S.-China flights a week, from Detroit to Shanghai on Monday and Friday, and from Seattle to Shanghai on Tuesday and Thursday. At present, Delta Has cancelled flights from the 28th, after which the status of flights shows normal. However, Delta Air Lines personnel told the Global Times reporter that it is impossible to give predictions about whether the flights after the 28th can fly normally, and the company is coordinating with the Chinese side to accelerate internal personnel deployment. According to the analysis of a number of ticket-buying websites in the United States, the current Christmas and New Year holidays, coupled with the shortage of airline personnel caused by the spread of the epidemic, at least until the beginning of January, Delta Air Lines has little hope of resuming flights to China and the United States.
This chaos is also something Delta has been experiencing over the past few days. The US "Axios" website said on the 27th that Delta Air Lines said in a statement, "The team canceled about 90 flights on Friday after exhausting all options and resources, including rerouting routes, replacing aircraft and crew to meet the scheduled flights."
U.S. radio "11alive" said Delta Canceled More Than 300 Flights last Sunday. As operations continue to be affected by the pandemic, the company continued to cancel flights on Monday. FlightAware, the flight tracking website, said Delta canceled 81 routes on Monday. Delta on Monday also blamed a large number of flight delays and cancellations on winter weather in St. Paul, Minneapolis, Seattle and Salt Lake City.
The flight chaos tested the United States
The situation with Delta Air Lines is a reflection of the current chaos in the U.S. aviation industry. "Travel nightmare." CNN reported on the 27th that according to the data of "FlightAware", about 1,000 of the 2800 flights cancelled on Monday due to the surge in global new crown pneumonia cases were flights into, leaving or within the United States. In addition, more than 1,200 flights were cancelled and more than 5,000 were delayed in the United States on Sunday alone because staff and crew were on sick leave.
Flight cancellations come at the busiest time of the year for air travel. Also due to a lack of adequate crew, United said last week it had to cancel hundreds of flights. The company's memo, obtained by CNN, said: "The surge in infection cases in Omi kerong across the country has had a direct impact on our crew and operations staff. ”
According to the statistics of Johns Hopkins University in the United States, as of 6:21 Beijing time on the 28th, in the past 24 hours, there were 417512 new confirmed cases and 1172 new deaths in the United States. White House medical adviser Fauci said given the high contagiousness of the Aumechjong strain, "there will continue to be a surge in cases for some time." The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said last week that the Aumechjong strain already accounted for 73 percent of new infections in the United States.
The grim situation even led US President Joe Biden to admit that the federal government could not fight the epidemic. Biden said in a video conference with the US governor on the 27th that there is no solution at the federal government level, these problems need to be solved at the state level, and the federal government will provide support for the state to fight the epidemic (see the fifth edition of today's newspaper).
"The Opmiqueron was coming menacingly, and officials shortened the quarantine for many Americans." According to the New York Times, the CDC previously recommended 10 days of isolation for infected people, and now recommends shortening the quarantine time to 5 days for those who are asymptomatic or do not have a fever but other symptoms are disappearing. The duration of isolation for close contacts has also changed: unvaccinated people only need to quarantine for 5 days, compared to 14 days before; those who receive booster needles do not need to be isolated, but are encouraged to wear a 10-day mask and tested on day 5. CDC officials say the new recommendations are based on knowledge of the spread of the virus and the protection provided by vaccination and booster needles.
Health officials want to minimize the growing disruption to the economy and daily life. The shortage of employees caused by the pandemic has disrupted holiday travel for Americans, led to thousands of flight cancellations, and now threatens multiple industries such as healthcare, dining, retail and more. But health experts warn that the United States is still in the early stages of the rapid spread of the outbreak.
According to the Washington Post, U.S. business groups welcomed the CDC's proposal, but some health experts were outraged. Michael Mina, an epidemiologist at Harvard University, tweeted: "If someone tested positive 5 days ago but doesn't have a negative test result at the moment, I definitely don't want to sit next to that person." ”
[Global Times reporter Zhao Jueheng, Tu Lei, Zhang Changyue, Global Times special correspondent in the United States Lin RiXin Bin]
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