SINGAPORE: Singapore Airlines (SIA) said on Friday (Jan 31) it will reduce capacity on some of its routes to mainland China in February due to the growing scale of the coronavirus epidemic.

The cuts include flights to Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chengdu, Xiamen and Chongqing, some of which are flown by its regional arm SilkAir, it said on its Facebook page.



SIA's low-cost carrier Scoot said it will suspend flights to 11 cities in China from early February until the end of March and it will reduce frequencies to eight other Chinese destinations.



Scoot will suspend flights between Singapore and Harbin, Hangzhou, Shenyang, Xi’an, Changsha, Nanchang, Zhengzhou, Ningbo, Jinan, Nanning and Wuxi, said the carrier on Facebook.



Flight frequency will be reduced for Fuzhou, Guangzhou, Haikou, Kunming, Nanjing, Qingdao, Tianjin and Macau, from Feb 1 to Mar 28, 2020.

Some flights between Singapore and Guangzhou, Nanjing, Macau and Hong Kong will also be cancelled, Scoot added.



The number of confirmed deaths from the coronavirus outbreak in China has risen to more than 200 after worst-hit Hubei province reported 42 new fatalities on Friday.



On Thursday the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a global emergency over the deadly pathogen, which has spread to a number of countries around the world.

"We must all act together now to limit further spread ... We can only stop it together," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a briefing in Geneva.

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