The United States will suspend entry for travellers coming from the Schengen Area, covering 26 European countries, effective on midnight, March 13, 2020, President Donald Trump announced in an Oval Office address.
“We will be suspending all travel from Europe to the United States for the next 30 days. The new rules will go into effect Friday at midnight. These restrictions will be adjusted subject to conditions on the ground,” Trump said.
According to a follow-up statement issued by the Department of Homeland Security, the presidential proclamation covers all foreign nationals who have been to any of the Schengen Area countries “at any point during the 14 days prior to their scheduled arrival to the United States.”
The Schengen Zone includes all European Union members except for the United Kingdom, Ireland, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, and Cyprus, as well as Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, and Liechtenstein, which are not EU members.
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We have looked at the countries and airlines which will be most affected by the new limitations based on the ch-aviation capacities data as of this week (starting March 9, 2020).
There are 8 countries in the Schengen Zone which do not have any scheduled flights to the US this week. The list includes Czechia, Estonia, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Malta, Slovakia and Slovenia.
In total, there are 432 566 seats scheduled from March 9 to 15. 27% of these seats are scheduled from Germany.
Country | Number of seats |
Germany | 119 231 |
France | 83 621 |
Netherlands (the) | 60 394 |
Spain | 43 319 |
Switzerland | 26 232 |
Italy | 21 710 |
Portugal | 16 714 |
Iceland | 11 653 |
Belgium | 11 435 |
Denmnark | 10 005 |
The largest alliance affected by the grounding is Star Alliance with 193 454 seats scheduled between the Schengen Zone and the US currently. SkyTeam has 138 206 seats scheduled and oneworld has a relatively low impact with 49 806 seats scheduled (mainly because the largest European oneworld carrier British Airways is based in UK).
Airline | Number of seats |
Lufthansa | 69 163 |
Delta Air Lines | 67 781 |
United Airlines | 57 265 |
Air France | 38 279 |
American Airlines | 30 199 |
KLM Royal Dutch Airlines | 22 478 |
Norwegian | 19 810 |
Swiss | 18 390 |
SAS Scandinavian Airlines | 16 599 |
Iberia | 15 852 |
TAP Air Portugal | 13 078 |
Icelandair | 11 653 |
LOT Polish Airlines | 7 632 |
Alitalia | 7 004 |
Emirates | 5 901 |
Data from the the ch-aviation capacities module