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With concerns about the Wuhan coronavirus continuing to spread, Cathay Pacific and Air China have both introduced cancellation waivers for flights involving mainland China.

Cathay’s current policy is as follows:

“With immediate effect, rebooking, rerouting and refund charges will be waived for all tickets issued worldwide (irrespective of fare type) on/before 24 January 2020 for travel with Cathay Pacific/Cathay Dragon confirmed bookings arriving to or departing from Mainland China between 24 January 2020 and 29 February 2020.

1. Cathay Pacific/Cathay Dragon tickets

a. Cancellation and Refund

• Waive on cancellation, and refund charges.
• No-show passenger is not eligible for the waiver.

b. Rebooking/ rerouting

Rebooking/ rerouting charges will be waived on conditions that:

• Such requests are made on/before 29 February 2020 and before departure, for travel with Cathay Pacific/Cathay Dragon confirmed bookings arriving to or departing from Mainland China between 24 January 2020 and 29 February 2020.No-show passengers are not eligible for the waiver.

• Revised (NEW) travel date must be on/before 31 May 2020 and subject to flight availability.In which case, the ticket expiry date will be adjusted accordingly.

• The newly rebooked sector must observe and conform to the conditions of the respective fare rule, e.g. blackout dates, flight application, weekend/weekday travel, stopover charges and applicable seasonality by collecting additional/refunding difference (if any) as appropriate.

• Reissuance charges will only be waived due to the expiry of the original ticket

• Rerouting to/from/via Cathay Pacific/ Cathay Dragon online citiesAnd subject to flight availability and fare/tax difference.”

Air China’s policy can be found below:

“In order to help passengers arrange their travels, notes on the special handling regulations for relevant air tickets are given as follows:
I. Eligible passenger tickets:
Tickets for flights operated by Air China with numbers beginning with 999 (including award tickets) or CA -coded codeshare flights booked before 0:00 am on January 24, 2020.
II. Ticket handling ways
1. Free refund applies to all the eligible passenger tickets.
2. An eligible ticket can be refunded without refund fee through the original ticket-booking channel within the validity period of the ticket (within one year of the issue date).
Air China wants to actively speed up the refund responses. Thank you for your understanding and support. 

In order to carry out the joint prevention and control of the 2019-nCoV epidemic and implement the requirements established by Civil Aviation Administration of China, passengers who have booked tickets for flights operated by Air China and CA-coded flights operated by Air China with a ticket number beginning with 999, including mileage award tickets, can voluntarily refund their tickets from 0:00 am on January 24, 2020, and Air China and all of its ticket sales agencies should not charge refund fee.
Air China 24-hour service hotline: + 86-10-95583 ”

Bottom line

If you are due to be travelling with a different airline and have concerns, contact them directly and keep an eye on their social media accounts for news. It is highly likely that other airlines will soon introduce similar waivers for passengers scheduled to fly itineraries involving mainland China.