JEDDAH, 21 April 2003 — The outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) has hit the travel trade below the belt, just as airlines began to hope for a postwar turnaround.
Airlines are reporting a steady drop in passenger numbers, forcing some of them to cut flight frequencies to the Kingdom drastically.
Because of the SARS scare, most expats who were to head home to the Far East have canceled their bookings. “I will wait and watch the situation rather than travel now to Manila,” Ramon Gomez, 36, a Filipino engineer at the Dallah Tower, said.
“It’s the fear of SARS that’s forcing expatriates to cancel their vacation plans,” a Kanoo Travel executive said. “Passenger loads have been dropping by the hour, especially of airlines serving the SARS-affected and other destinations in the Far East.”
As a result, Singapore Airlines is operating just one flight a week against three until three weeks ago. Other airlines such as Garuda Indonesia and Royal Brunei have cut back their weekly flights from three to two.
Airport managers of various airlines said that the airports in Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam were fully geared to meet the new situation and passengers suspected of carrying the infection were being isolated, screened and thoroughly tested.
Managers of Singapore Airlines and Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific said arrangements were in place to screen all incoming and outgoing passengers at Singapore and Hong Kong airports. “Aside from Saudis, Indonesians and Filipinos have been traveling by Cathay Pacific and so far not a single infected passenger has been detected,” Kieran Bowers, Cathay’s Riyadh-based general manager, said.
