The United States announced on Thursday that it will suspend 26 China-bound flights by four Chinese carriers. The decision was taken in response to the Chinese government's move to suspend some US carrier flights over COVID-19 cases.

As per the US latest orders, flights by Xiamen, Air China, China Southern Airlines and China Eastern Airlines will remain suspended from September 5 to September 28, Reuters reported. This includes 19 China-bound flights from Los Angeles and seven China Eastern flights from New York.

The US Department of Transportation (USDOT) announced the suspension citing the recent cancellation of 26 American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines flights over COVID-19 cases.

ALSO READ | IndiGo to connect Mumbai-Chengdu daily from March 15

The Chinese Embassy in Washington's spokesperson Liu Pengyu said the USDOT action was "extremely irresponsible" and "groundlessly suspended Chinese airline flights."

Pengyu was quoted by Reuters as saying that China's COVID-19 "circuit breaker" measures were fair and transparent and that they were applied both to Chinese and foreign airlines and were consistent with bilateral air transportation agreements.

'China revised their policies'

As of August 7, the USDOT said Chinese authorities had revised their policies — so if the number of passengers on a flight to China testing positive for COVID-19 reached 4 percent of the total, one flight would be suspended. If it reached 8 percent, two flights would be suspended.

The USDOT said the US has repeatedly raised objections with China, saying the rules place "undue culpability on carriers" when travelers test negative before boarding their flight from the United States only to "test positive for COVID-19 after their arrival in China."

US and China spar over flight services

Beijing and Washington have sparred over air services since the start of the novel coronavirus pandemic. In January, the Transportation Department suspended 44 China-bound flights from the United States by the four Chinese carriers in response to China's decision suspend 44 flights by US carriers.

In August 2021, USDOT limited four flights from Chinese carriers to 40 percent passenger capacity for four weeks after Beijing imposed identical limits on four United Airlines flights.

Three US airlines and four Chinese carriers typically operate about 20 flights a week between the countries, well below the figure of more than 100 a week before the pandemic.

(With inputs from Reuters)

(Edited by : Akriti Anand)