New COVID-19 related cleaning requirements at a Shanghai airport caused a flight from Seattle to turn back around midair, Delta Air Lines said on Monday.
Updated mandates at the Shanghai Pudong International Airport “require significantly extended ground time and are not operationally viable for Delta,” according to an emailed statement.
China has tightened its already strict COVID-19 travel restrictions because of an outbreak in the city of Xi’an. The country is also focused on the safety of the upcoming Winter Olympics in Beijing.
Xi'an is about 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) southwest of Beijing and reported more than 300 new cases over the weekend. The city of 13 million has been on lockdown, and allows only one person per household to leave every two days to shop for necessities.
This isn't the first Delta flight to turn back around to Seattle, as a flight last week left passengers with expired COVID-19 test results and U.S. visas, according to Chinese media reports.
Due to the new cleaning requirements, China Air and EVA Air have both limited the number of flights heading to Shanghai Pudong International Airport over the last few days. More than 2,800 flights were cancelled on Monday due to rising COVID-19 cases, and there were more than 6,000 flights globally cancelled on Dec. 24.
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