Coronavirus + NH
 

Don't see any posted waivers on the NH website for places affected by coronavirus. Anyone know how they're handling rebookings/changes?

NH posted waivers for Wuhan on their website.
https://www.ana.co.jp/en/jp/topics/notice200123/

Sorry. Should have clarified. Meant Additional impacted Chinese cities

UA has PEK PVG and CTU
CX has all of mainland China

Apart from Wuhan, which is not operating at the moment, reroute, rebooking, and cancellation is handled according to ticket fare rules. Of YMMV if you call them, but until they announce more waivers, I would not expect anything else.

Tokyo has been great this weekend with fewer Chinese tourists. Less people is always good. Department stores were finally manageable again without pushing and overly loud conversations.

Clearly fewer pax coming over. I was supposed to head to PVG this week but cancelled it. Not out of fear of infection, but that the Japanese government would require NH to cancel all flights or would deny entry like the US is now doing in an unprecedented move. Further I’m going back to the US in two weeks so that would no longer be possible if I had a couple days in China.

Wonder when the Japanese government will implement what Australia and the US and others have done with the travel bans. Wonder if NH would keep flying if only Japanese citizens were allowed into the country from ex China flights.

All of this reminds me of an NH flight I took into PVG years ago during SARS, and the hazmat suited staff came into the plane on the tarmac and scanned everyone’s forehead before the plane could reach the gate to deplane. And that was on a flight INTO China at the time.

Update: Just heard on the local news that NH is cancelling most (?) China flights due to the planes being mostly empty. Wonder to what extent that is true.

JTB said they would cancel all tours to China. That should make a dent in the loads for sure. And most of the big Japanese companies have put severe travel restrictions on China.

Anyone know if rebooking under the waiver requires them to follow the existing ticket’s routing rules or just keep O and D the same?

This page has been updated:

https://www.ana.co.jp/en/jp/topics/notice200123/

However, under bullet point 3, it's unclear what ANA means:

"3. Change of boarding date (Special Handling)

Change of boarding date is allowed "once" within April 20. 2020 with an applicable ticket."

Does this mean that the deadline to **request** a change is April 30, 2020? Or, does this mean that the **new departure date** must be before May 1, 2020? If the latter case is correct, then what if the epidemic is still there as of April 2020?

Based on the Japanese text,

対象航空券をお持ちのお客様は、2020年4月20日までの期間内で「1回のみ」搭乗日の変更 が可能です

I'd say that passengers with eligible tickets are allowed to make one date change, during the period until April 20th

Thanks for the reply.

So, in other words, the travel departure date can be BEYOND April 30, 2020, correct?

I have the same question. Surprisingly hard to get an answer. I called ANA's customer service line a few days ago and they wouldn't give me a definitive answer. But it sounded like they wanted the new departure date to be in the near future.

That would be my reading of the text, however it is vague enough to not offer a certainty that it is what is meant.

I called NH. After a long hold, the agent told me that the new departure date has to be before Apr 20. (I am guessing that NH wants to reserve enough seats for the Olympics.)

I then asked what if the coronavirus is still a pandemic in Apr 2020? Then, she just said that they cannot predict the future.

I believe that this agent is not very knowledgeable anyway, because she wasn't sure if HKG was part of fee waiver destinations. So, I guess we have to call multiple agents and triangulate their answers.

Thanks everybody.

That is such a wonderfully Japanese answer. :D

Hong Kong and Macau is included. It is in the note under eligible tickets

https://www.ana.co.jp/en/jp/topics/notice200123/

I'm a bit annoyed they only allow changes through April, especially given that I already have the same flights booked in April.