227 Chinese stranded overseas set to arrive home on Friday night, Beijing says

Civil aviation authority says it has arranged flights from Thailand, Malaysia to get holidaymakers back to Wuhan

Preparations also being made to repatriate Chinese stuck in Canada, Singapore, Japan and Myanmar, official says

Reading Time:3 minutes

Wuhan residents are screened as they prepare to board their flight home at Kota Kinabalu International Airport in Malaysia on Friday evening. Photo: Handout

Published: 5:59pm, 31 Jan 2020Updated: 5:25pm, 15 Feb 2020

Two groups of Chinese residents of Wuhan, the city at the centre of the coronavirus outbreak, who were stranded overseas will fly home on Friday evening as China undertakes its first mass repatriation effort since 2014.

The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) said it had arranged two Xiamen Air flights to carry 117 people from Bangkok in Thailand and a further 100 from Kota Kinabalu in Malaysia.

Both flights are expected to arrive in Wuhan, the capital of central China’s Hubei province, at about 9pm on Friday.

A third, Spring Airlines, flight had also been arranged to take people who had been stranded in Tokyo back to Wuhan. It was expected to arrive early Saturday morning.

CAAC official Zhu Tao told a press conference in Beijing on Thursday that flights had also been arranged for Wuhan residents currently stuck in Singapore, Osaka in Japan, Krabi in Thailand, Mandalay in Myanmar, and elsewhere.

“All of China’s civil airlines are fully prepared and can provide capacity at any time once the needs have been clarified,” he said, without saying when the flights would take off.

Select Voice

Choose your listening speed

Get through articles 2x faster

1.25x

250 WPM

Slow

Average

Fast

00:0000:00

1.25x