Dubai [UAE], Mar 23 : The UAE's Emirates airline on Sunday announced that it would suspend all passenger flights starting from March 25 amid the coronavirus pandemic.
"Today we made the decision to temporarily suspend all passenger flights by 25 March 2020. SkyCargo operations will continue. This painful but pragmatic move will help Emirates Group preserve business viability and secure jobs worldwide, avoiding cuts," the company wrote on Twitter.
The virus has so far infected over 150 people in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, Chairman and Chief Executive of Emirates Group said: "The world has literally gone into quarantine due to the COVID-19 outbreak. This is an unprecedented crisis situation in terms of breadth and scale: geographically, as well as from a health, social, and economic standpoint. Until January 2020, the Emirates Group was doing well against our current financial year targets. But COVID-19 has brought all that to a sudden and painful halt over the past 6 weeks."
"As a global network airline, we find ourselves in a situation where we cannot viably operate passenger services until countries re-open their borders, and travel confidence returns. By Wednesday 25 March, although we will still operate cargo flights which remain busy, Emirates will have temporarily suspended most of its passenger operations," he added.
Emirates also said that it will continue to monitor the CVOID-19 situation worldwide and will reinstate the suspended flights as soon as possible.
"We will continue to watch the situation closely and will reinstate our temporarily suspended passenger services, as soon as feasible. These are unprecedented times for the airline and travel industry, but we will get through it with your support," he added.
So far, the worldwide tally of the lethal coronavirus has reached 3,18,000 and over 13,700 people have died, according to the WHO.
( With inputs from ANI )