Pittsburgh airport ramps up sanitizing efforts as coronavirus spreads

As travelers worldwide place their plans on hold because of the growing threat of the coronavirus, officials at Pittsburgh International Airport said Friday that things there are business as usual.

Bob Kerlik, a spokesman for the Allegheny County Airport Authority, said the airport has not received notice of flight reductions. He said there’s been no quantifiable impact locally from the virus, which leads to the disease known as covid-19.

“As for passenger counts, in January we were up 3.2% year-over-year,” he said.

The global toll of the novel coronavirus continued to rise this week, with cases topping 100,000, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The first suspected positive cases of the virus were confirmed in Pennsylvania on Friday.

State health officials said they contracted the virus through travel.

One of the two presumed positive cases is an adult from Wayne County who recently traveled to a country where the coronavirus is present, officials said. Another adult in Delaware County recently traveled to a part of the United States where the virus is present.

Kerlik said Pittsburgh International has no direct flights from China, Iran, South Korea or Italy, so any passenger screenings would happen before travelers land in Pittsburgh. The airport has emergencies plans in place, he said.

Beyond that, he said, the airport has upped its cleaning regimen, focusing heavily on common areas like restrooms, trains and moving walkways. Restrooms are being cleaned every two hours, and handrails in the trains four times a day.

He said about 30 hand sanitizer stations were installed throughout the terminals as well as at the entrance to the trains that move passengers between the landside and airside terminals.

Effect on airline industry

The airline industry has been crippled by the spreading virus, according to reports. Business Insider reported Friday that the Dow Jones Transportation index has plummeted more than 15% in the past month, and airlines are offering employees unpaid leave and postponing planned hiring.

The International Air Transport Association, an airline industry trade group, estimated this week that global revenue losses for the industry could reach between $63 billion and $113 billion. Even if the virus had been contained largely to China, the association still projected nearly $30 billion in losses.

White House officials Friday began mulling tax relief options for the airline, travel and cruise industries, according to The Washington Post.

One traveler told The New York Times that her flight from Los Angeles to New York was half empty. “A lot of us in the main cabin had our own rows,” she said.

United Airlines announced this week that it will waive change fees for any travel scheduled for the next 12 months that is booked between March 3 and March 31. It has suspended flights between the United States and Beijing, Chengdu, Hong Kong and Shanghai.

Some service has been suspended between Tokyo, Osaka, Singapore and Seoul, and CNBC reported Wednesday that it will cut domestic and Canadian flights by 10% next month.

Delta and American are also waiving change fees for flights booked before the end of the month.

Those who are keeping their travel plan — or still mulling a summer vacation — should pay close attention to any travel insurance they might purchase.

“Unfortunately even though the coronavirus has impacted travel on a worldwide scale, it is not listed as a covered event under most travel insurance policies,” said Kasara Barto, a spokeswoman for the trip insurance comparison website Squaremouth. “Things like epidemics, pandemics and viral outbreaks in general typically aren’t listed (in policies).”

Erin Gavin, an insurance product analyst with the website Insure My Trip, said travelers still making plans should seek out policies that allow cancellations for any reason.

She said most people want to be able to cancel their trips because they’re scared, but fear — based on the spreading virus or otherwise — is never covered.

Some policies might cover CDC guidelines and travel advisories, but it varies, she said.