SYDNEY — Airlines canceled more flights on Monday, as Australia and New Zealand warned against non-essential domestic travel, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) halted flights for two weeks and Singapore and Taiwan banned foreign transit passengers in the coronavirus battle. As demand evaporates, the number of scheduled flights last week was down more than 12% globally from the year earlier, flight data provider OAG said, with many airlines having announced further cuts to come. "It is a war against a virus," Andrew Herdman, director general of the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines, told Reuters in a telephone interview. "What we have to do is take care of the institutions and people's livelihoods, the soft capital, so that we can restart effectively in a timely way when the time comes."

Source: International New York Times March 23, 2020 05:23 UTC