Travel and flight curbs and border restrictions are upending lives around the globe, with some people resorting to chartering planes or paying many times the regular ticket price to get back to their jobs and homes. Eight months into the pandemic, the push to normalize is seeing some try to travel internationally again, whether for a long-delayed but an essential business trip or to return to where they live.
Yet with global coronavirus cases surpassing 18 million and rising, airlines are only reluctantly adding flights to their bare-bones schedules, and virus resurgences have some countries imposing new travel rules.
The flight paralysis underscores how deep and lasting the pandemic’s damage is proving to be. The number of international flights to the U.S., Australia, and Japan has fallen more than 80% from a year ago, while flights to China are down by more than 94%, according to aviation industry database Cirium. Travelers have to be creative just to get on a plane. Support groups have sprung up on Facebook
