U.S. OKs China Eastern rerouting of New York-Shanghai flights

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Transportation Department on Friday approved China Eastern Airlines Corp’s request to let it extend the rerouting of New York-to-Shanghai flights, over COVID-19 measures, to a different Chinese airport through May 31.

The department previously granted China Eastern’s request to move existing twice-weekly Shanghai westbound passenger flights from New York to China’s Fuzhou Changle International Airport in Fujian province through the end of April.

China Eastern said in a filing with the U.S. government that, “due to evolving coronavirus pandemic control measures in the Shanghai region,” Chinese aviation regulators had instructed it “to divert Shanghai-bound passenger flights arriving from the U.S. to certain alternate airports in China.”

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by William Mallard)