Ranelagh

My company, a large engineering multinational, announced no travel to CDC Zones 2 and 3, and we have to submit all personal travel plans for review. Our European offices have also closed to visitors and are not allowing any international travel at the moment.

AlbaGuBrath

Major bank. All international and domestic travel is banned, with exceptions being handled by senior management. Travel between offices in the same city is also banned.

As of next week people will be encouraged to work from home - or even forced, if their floor is being taken over by trading teams. Some teams have already been split up between business continuity sites.

aztimm

I work for a major US bank. Yesterday an email was sent out. No travel by airplane until further notice, unless essential. Essential travel needs to be approved by the executive committee (the CEO or 2-down). If you're traveling, get home ASAP. Anything already booked needs to be cancelled. All conferences and events will be looked at and either postponed or cancelled. Ensure your remote access (if you have it) works. If you don't have remote access, talk to your manager about getting it. Deep cleans will happen at all facilities, with hand sanitizer and wipes in all employee break areas.

I'm already a 100% work-from-home employee, so none of this will really impact me. I've still been going to the gym and local swimming pools, stores, etc.

largeeyes

One of the suppliers I met with last week had banned travel via train and plane, but not via auto.

But LOL at submitting personal travel plans for review......I wonder if you could work this into like 2 weeks paid leave in "quarantine".

Ranelagh

There's no way they're going to get people to do it. Everyone is just going to say "it's a staycation!" or make something up. But we've been talking about destination quarantines - sun is good for you, right?

worldwidedreamer

I work for a small software company with a distributed team split between the US + China + Vietnam. Everyone is grounded and encouraged to WFH.

My wife works for a large US media company which has banned international travel, requires executive approval for work domestic travel and a 14 day quarantine for anyone visiting the usual list of countries. Everyone in her office today is packing up as if they won't return next week.

We have a trip to Hawaii planned next week, so I'm hopeful that nothing more strict is announced before we take flight.

Mods: Not sure if you want to create a Wiki, but this crowd-sourced document lists a bunch of publicly announced Corona virus response plans. Also---Sirius XM launched a free streaming channel, along with a free satellite channel, with the latest information about the virus.

javabytes

My company (tech consulting) has not banned travel. But we also don’t happen to work in countries with current Level 3 or 4 travel advisories. So for now it’s just “monitor CDC guidance and be smart”.

I wouldn’t mind telling my employer where I’m going on vacation... for instance, if they want me to work
from home for two weeks afterwards and keep anything I caught away from the rest of the office... but they can get stuffed if they think they hold a veto over it.

IMOA

Most of our customers have this week instituted a ban on all people who have travelled internationally entering their office within 14 days of that travel. As an employer we do need to know our employee private travel to make sure we don’t send them to a customer with one of those bans in place. To be honest it never occurred to me that one of our employees would refuse to advise us if they’ve been overseas given the circumstances of why we need to know.

Wboy411a

Very similar policies in my employer. Absolutely no travel to South East Asia & Italy. All other travel must be business essential and approved by Senior Management. No restrictions on personal travel, but subject to 14 days work at home upon return, based on location.

invisible

No we are not in US. Justification for firing is gross misconduct, when you have been told to follow emergency procedure and you didn’t.

PS. It migh surprise you that it is very large German company, but we are located in APJ with regional HQ here.

Transpacificflyer

No, I disagree with your assessment, and would instead say that the Canadian strategy is anything but "good'. Unfortunately, Canada like many other countries, is repeating the same errors as the past SARS pandemic, despite their boastful claims to the contrary. Where governments fail to act decisively, companies and individuals must step in with pragmatic suspensions of travel.

Perhaps if we used the actual name of the virus; Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)” it would remind people that we are dealing with SARS . I chuckle at the frequent pronouncements to wash our hands. Yes it helps, but honestly, if the virus was as easily managed by hand washing as claimed, then medical care workers would not need all their protective gear and would still not run the risk of being infected. This is a very infectious virus and it is mutating.

The Canadian government has been offering misleading information from the start of the crisis. First was its false claim that there was no evidence of human to human transmission that it used to justify a refusal to restrict travelers from China. The Minister actually was still insisting on this despite Canada already having two known human to human transmissions in Canada. Then the empty assurances of being prepared were made. When the Minister of health was asked for details on the national pandemic plan, all she could offer was a blank grimace. The federal agencies tasked with managing the crisis were starved for money and personnel. Today's announcement of a paltry $20 million of funding is an insult. It comes on the same day the US announced its US$8 billion+ allocation for the crisis. Not that the USA is any better with its bungling of the test kits.

However, the key issue, and why the travel suspensions and even the temporary bans are needed is due to the inability of the health care systems of many countries to care for the expected complicated cases. Canadian ERs are usually over capacity and almost every hospital has reduced acute care beds such that there is a shortage. There are also health professional personnel shortages and a very weak supply chain for infectious disease protection clothing. Canada has had minimal spending on pandemic preparation and cut funding for its SARS research. The UK's NHS has critical care deficiencies and the reality is that there are regions in many countries that do not have access to the necessary medical facilities. Examples are Canada's far north, Russia's outlying Siberia, Australia's small towns in its hinterlands and even the USA with rural counties lacking medical facilities. If an infection gets into those regions, people will be on their own and the mortality rates will certainly exceed those of the large urban areas.

There is a reluctance by some governments to impose travel restrictions. Many of the cases now being identified in Canada are being traced back to travelers from Iran and Italy. However, Canada has no additional measures to screen for these people. The argument given by the Health Minister is that "experts" say there is no need to do it, that it does not work. When asked who these experts are, the minister is unable to answer. When asked if there is actual research to support the claim, no one is able to provide a reliable response. What we do know is that travel suspensions/restrictions can and do work when carefully applied as part of a multifaceted approach. Vietnam demonstrated this when it closed its border to China and has been carefully monitoring its visitors. The result is no reported infections for almost two weeks. China did the world a favour when it stopped group travel. Canada certainly wasn't going to stop Chinese tour groups from entering. Macau and Hong Kong enacted some travel restrictions and they have shown excellent results. Italy's mismanagement of its epidemic is a chilling wake up call for the EU and its freedom of movement. Why would anyone want to travel to Italy until the Italians get themselves organized? I will not be surprised if China gets this under control in 2 months and then has to ban visitors from Italy.

It is therefore a prudent measure for North American and European employers to suspend non essential travel. I am waiting on my employer of 13,000+ to cancel upcoming management meetings in the USA. I really don't want to go, and anticipate that the event will be canceled if the reported cases in the USA continue to grow. If the decision is delayed we will probably be dinged for $1million+ in cancellation charges (flights, hotels, speaker fees etc.) By not traveling, I am giving the US one less visitor to worry about and I am minimizing the risk that I bring an infection back to my office. My US colleagues share the same sentiment and would prefer not to travel especially the older ones and those with heart disease and/or diabetes. We have already received directives to curtail meetings, and avoid non essential travel as have my clients and strategic partners. I am even trying to work from home more often.

It would be a good thing for everyone to take a 30 day voluntary suspension of non essential travel. The airlines can use this as an opportunity to do deferred maintenance and cleaning. Hotels can use this as time to upgrade and deep clean rooms. Maybe some of the hotels with their bedbug infestations can finally fumigate their entire buildings. Restaurants can clean their facilities.

sokolov

A lot of travelers well lose their status with their FFP. With hotel programs too, probably, though I wouldn't be suprised if hotels made exceptions to their requalification rules.

Currently, airports seem to be quite nice. Much less crowded.

However, those losing FFP status​​​ may be less inclined to fly next year (or use cheaper tickets/carriers). This could have a medium term effect on carriers

largeeyes

A large German company that would never try to pull that crap here.

Sorry, I just don't see what I do on my free time, outside my 40 hours a week, as any of their business.

SamirD

Not only airlines, but this will hit the entire travel sector hard--hospitality, restaurants, rental cars, and more.

My father lives in an area with a lot of government and corporate travel that pretty much is why there's an airport. The lines of leisure travelers on the weekends won't be keeping those lights on, and they won't be travelling either. This will affect the hotels in the area, which are 80%+ business travelers as well as the restaurants that get a bulk of their revenue from the work travelers. Even the rental card companies that never seem to have cars will suddenly have an available fleet.
I think essentially that is what everyone is moving towards. The airlines seems to have already predicted this with AA, United and Delta all waiving all change fees for the month of March in order to keep people still flying versus cancel altogether.

The problem is that without revenue coming in, the lights can't even be kept on moreless deep cleaning and upgrades. I think those industries will be facing a lot of layoffs as the work dries up as the cash will be needed to pay the mortgages. I wouldn't be surprised if this even ripples into the banking sector as companies that were on the edge go under. The economic effects of this situation may even be more far reaching and damaging than the health threat itself.

And that brings me to something that dawned on me the other day as I was seeing statistics--when has medical science been this perfect in diagnosis? Haven't people that had a cold been diagnosed with less and vice versa? What about the numbers of cases of cold and flu that no one ever goes to the doctor and just get better? The same could be happening with this new contagion, and if there are many more cases that are not even on the map, that tells us 2 important things. One, is that if many more people have this and have recovered (like the common cold, flu, etc), then it is not as deadly as it is made out to be. Two, if it is not so deadly, then the spread is not as threatening to life as it was original perceived and we can go back to normal to avoid the economic effects that will surely also kill people.

My brother works for a major education company based in the Bay Area and this weekend they sent out some guidance on unnecessary work travel and wfh. Many of his team are already working virtually so the work will continue. My wife also works for a major company in the Bay Area and while they have stopped all non-essential travel to areas with cases, other parts of the world are still business as usual. She has a work trip planned to Guatemala next month. Our concern is what happens if the government there decides after she has gotten there that a quarantine is needed. That will be a lot worse than being stuck at home. I think a lot of companies are considering this possibility which would cripple operations even more if key people are 'stuck' somewhere.

sskl1998

Mu company is restricting travel to China, S Korea and Europe.