In an ordinary crisis, when commercial airlines were unable to meet an increasingly urgent need for flights, business aviation would be racing to take up the slack.

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought a temporary surge of new airlines and routes to Australasia for repatriation missions. But in the longer term, the crisis is also disrupting plans for high-profile long-haul flights from this region and prompting questions about their viability.

Etihad Airways plans to start trials at its home airport of a device that alerts staff to the presence of passengers with medical conditions, potentially including the early stages of the coronavirus infection.

With key customer Boeing recently suspending much of its own work indefinitely to try to deep-clean amid the novel coronavirus outbreak, Wichita-based Spirit AeroSystems announced April 8 it has also practically halted production for Boeing programs performed at its headquarters and in Oklahoma for an indefinite period of time.

Lufthansa Technik (LHT) has reached an agreement to introduce short-time work for around 12,000 employees in Germany.

Teledyne Technologies, a key supplier of aerospace instruments, digital imaging products and defense electronics, has warned Wall Street of a dramatic falloff in commercial aerospace business and that its full 2020 outlook will be ramped down due to the novel coronavirus.

Korean Air is putting about 70% of its South Korea-based workforce on leave for up to six months to match the heavily reduced scale of its operations.

Lufthansa is to permanently decommission more than 40 aircraft including six Airbus A380s, reduce Eurowings’ long-haul business and scrap its Germanwings brand.