Photo: Xinhua

The flights of Japan and South Korea airlines to China market will be hit further as the viral coronavirus epidemic has expanded on their soil, posing increasing challenge to the carrier business.

The number of flights between China and South Korea will drop to 276 next week, down from 320 in the week starting from February 24, and the number of flights between China and Japan will decline to 263 next week, compared with 380 in this week, Zhu Tao, an official at the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), said Sunday.

Zhou's remark came as the COVID-19 virus has expanded, as Reuters reported that South Korea had 586 new coronavirus infections on Sunday, taking the tally to 3,736 cases. Japan reported the sixth death from COVID-19, excluding six deaths among those aboard the cruise ship Diamond Princess.

In a press conference Saturday, US Vice President Mike Pence announced that the US has raised the travel warning to level 4 - its most severe warning - regarding personnel travel to affected areas of Italy and South Korea, according to usatoday.com.

Zhou said the CAAC pays close attention to changes in flight routes between some countries with severe epidemics and China, and recently, the epidemics in South Korea and Japan have developed rapidly, which has affected the international aviation markets of China, South Korea, and Japan. 

"Chinese and foreign airlines have reduced some flights according to market demand and the epidemic situation," he said.

Data from VariFlight, one of China's top air-data services firms, sent to the Global Times showed that the cancellation rate of flights between the Chinese mainland and Japan was 82.74 percent on Saturday, and 76.46 percent to South Korea.

Zhang Wu'an, spokesperson of low-budget Spring Airlines, told the Global Times on Sunday that there are only two routes on services each from China to South Korea and Japan, compared with more than 10 routes available before the virus.

Although the carrier will not cancel more routes in the coming weeks, the load factor is about 50 percent on average for the four routes flying to the two countries, Zhang said. 

Currently, Spring Airlines flies from Shanghai to Seoul and Jeju in South Korea, Shanghai to Tokyo and Osaka in Japan.

The International Air Transport Association said last month that the Asia-Pacific region could see $27.8 billion revenue loss in 2020 for carriers, the bulk of which would be borne by carriers registered in China.