Air New Zealand Chief Medical Officer Dr Ben Johnston says the airline is monitoring the situation. Video / Air New Zealand
Air New Zealand will suspend its Auckland-Shanghai service from February 9 to March 29.
Air New Zealand chief operational integrity and standards officer Captain David Morgan says the move reflects the potential consequence of international travel bans on crew logistics and a further decline in customer bookings on the routeover the next two months.
"Our teams are currently putting in place alternative travel options for customers impacted by the suspension and they will be contacted directly over the coming week."
The announcement this afternoon reflects how quickly the coronavirus impact is hitting travel.
Just yesterday the airline said it would keep flying to Shanghai although reduce services to the city from February 18 from daily to four days a week.
The Air NZ decision today to pull out completely for six weeks followed an announcement by Qantas that it would quit Beijing and Shanghai during the same period.
American Airlines overnight announced it was also pulling out of China following pressure from pilots.
Airlines still operating into China face difficulties in other parts of their networks with restrictions imposed by countries including Singapore and the United States, affecting the movement of crew who work across their networks.
Chinese government owned airlines, China Southern, China Eastern, Air China and Hainan Airlines carry about 85 per cent of passengers to New Zealand and have not announced any cut back to their services.
Meanwhile, test results for New Zealand's first possible case of coronavirus returned as negative.
More than 11,000 people worldwide have been infected by the virus, with China reporting this afternoon 259 people have died after contracting it.
It was revealed yesterday a patient at Auckland City Hospital was being held in isolation after they met the symptoms of possibly having coronavirus.
Director General of Health Ashley Bloomfield told media at a press conference in Wellington this afternoon the patient did not have coronavirus.
Bloomfield said even though the tested had returned as negative, New Zealanders should remain vigilant.
He thanked the patient for "doing all the right things", including self-isolation after developing symptoms.
Anyone who had been in close contact with a person who had contracted coronavirus, or who had been in Wuhan city within the past fortnight should self isolate themselves, he said.
"We have a result - it's encouraging that the result was negative and of course, fantastic for the person," Bloomfield said.
Auckland City Hospital was well prepared, with Bloomfield saying "our systems were ready".
Coronaviruses are part of a diverse family of viruses which include the common cold. This month, officials identified one called novel coronavirus, or 2019-nCoV.
Its symptoms - fever, coughing and difficulty breathing - are similar to a range of other illnesses such as influenza.
Air New Zealand will suspend its Auckland-Shanghai service from February 9 to March 29.
New Zealand's Ministry of Health said the risk of an ongoing outbreak in the country remained low, but it was actively monitoring the situation.
On its website, it encourages Kiwis to be proactive in their fight against infection by covering coughs and sneezes and using good hand hygiene.
They also encouraged people who had travelled within the past month to seek medical advice and contact Healthline on 0800 611 116.
Elsewhere, people in Auckland had started buying antiseptic sprays and liquids by the box as the world grapples with the coronavirus outbreak.
Countdown Meadowlands was bringing in extra stock of hand sanitisers, antiseptic liquids and antibacterial sprays - particularly Dettol.
Duty manager Kumar Than told The Weekend Herald its warehouse was sending extra stock for those items regularly now - something they had not seen before.
"All the shelves are getting empty very quickly," Than said.
"Those items like the hand sanitisers, Dettol, are selling very good, certainly after the coronavirus warning.
"We have online orders. Our staff doing online shopping, they're also seeing so many orders - especially sanitary items [like] Dettol and that kind of thing."
