State companies halt travel to China,
As concern about the spread of the coronavirus grows, Connecticut corporations have halted travel to China and a meeting next week with Chinese business officials here has been canceled.
Delta Air Lines and American Airlines announced Friday a suspension of all flights between the U.S. and China, joining several international carriers’ growing concern about the virus. President Trump temporarily also suspended entry into the United States for any foreign nationals who have traveled to China.
A spokeswoman for Farmington-based Otis elevator, which has a significant market for ever-expanding high-rise buildings in Chinese cities, said the elevator manufacturer has postponed all travel to the Asian nation until further notice.
Travel for Aetna workers overseas has been suspended and Aetna offices in Beijing and Shanghai remain closed until Feb. 10, said a spokeswoman for CVS Health Corp., Aetna’s parent company. The CVS office in Hong Kong is closed until Monday.
Anne Evans, district director in Connecticut of the U.S. Department of Commerce, said four visitors from Shandong, China, canceled meetings scheduled for next week in Hartford, New Haven and elsewhere intended to match them with local businesses. Meetings will be rescheduled, she said.
“Nobody wants to take the risk,” she said. “Nobody’s going to get on a plane. It’s too scary. You don’t know what you bring back.”
Another factor is Connecticut’s extensive network of aerospace and aviation manufacturers that could be affected if airline travel to China continues to take a hit.
The Singapore Airshow, scheduled for Feb. 11-16, is billed as “Asia’s largest aerospace and defense event.” Paul Murphy, executive director of the Aerospace Components Manufacturers, an industry group, said he has not heard of aerospace companies in Connecticut and western Massachusetts pulling out of the airshow due to its proximity to China.
The virus has infected almost 10,000 people globally in just two months, a sign of its spread that prompted the World Health Organization to declare the outbreak a global emergency. The U.S. on Friday advised against all travel to China as the number of cases spiked more than tenfold in a week, including the highest death toll in a 24-hour period on Friday.
Of 9,692 confirmed cases in China, 213 deaths were reported, according to The Associated Press. No deaths were reported among the six confirmed coronavirus cases in the United States.
The State Department’s level 4 “Do Not Travel” advisory, the highest grade of warning, told Americans in China to consider departing using commercial means. “Travelers should be prepared for travel restrictions to be put into effect with little or no advance notice,” the advisory said.
China was the sixth biggest export market for Connecticut goods in 2017, according to the U.S.-China Business Council. It accounted for $762 million in goods, following France, Canada, Germany and the United Kingdom.
Donald Allan, chief financial officer of Stanley Black & Decker Inc., told industry analysts on a conference call Wednesday that the New Britain tool and equipment storage manufacturer’s major facilities and suppliers are not in the affected area in China. The company “is working through contingencies for manufacturing” and its supply base, he said.
Gregory Hayes, chief executive officer of United Technologies Corp., said the impact of coronavirus will likely be less harmful than during the 2003 SARS virus, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, that slowed air traffic for about three months and had a six-month impact on maintenance and repairs.
Airlines “are a hell of a lot healthier” than in 2003, a little more than a year after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and bankruptcies, he told industry analysts Tuesday on a conference call.
“The fact is air traffic remains pretty strong, but there will be a blip in Asia this quarter as a result of this,” Hayes said.
The Chinese government is doing a “much better job” containing the virus “and while we expect there will be some impact of the commercial aftermarket, we don’t expect it will be significant,” he said.