Overseas Chinese make desperate bid to return home as virus spreads worldwide

Chinese nationals overseas are rushing back home, concerned with the global spread of COVID-19 but flight reductions and exorbitant prices are hampering their plans, official media reported.

The coronavirus has shown signs of gradually abating in China including in the epicentre Wuhan where only one confirmed case was reported on Monday. The virus, which has claimed 7,100 lives worldwide, was first reported in Wuhan in December last year.

Since Sunday, Chinese students abroad have complained on microblogging website Sina Weibo that their flights to China were cancelled, demanding an explanation from Air China.

"We've paid a lot, but the problem is no flights," a Weibo user wrote, state-run Global Times reported.

A high school student in the UK, Zhu, on Thursday found out that his London-Beijing had been cancelled.

The panic-driven travel rush has spiked the prices of international tickets, the report said.

Hilbert Xiao, a Cambridge University student, told the Global Times that he spent 20,000 yuan (USD 2,856), seven times the normal price, to return to Shanghai on Monday by plane from London via Osaka in Japan after the previous flight he booked with a stopover in Singapore was cancelled.

A business jet service company said all 40 seats on a flight from London to Shanghai with ticket prices starting at 180,000 yuan (USD 25,632), with a stopover at Geneva, was quickly booked after the itinerary was released by a few employees on their social media friend circles.

Demand would outnumber provisions if flight promotion is done publicly, Southern Metropolis Daily reported.

In the US, all American airlines have halted flights to China which has resulted in limited options for Chinese immigrants to return home.

China's National Health Commission (NHC) said on Tuesday that 21 new confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus infection and 13 deaths were reported on the Chinese mainland on Monday.

Of the deaths, 12 were in worst-hit Hubei province and its capital Wuhan one in Shaanxi province, it said.

The overall confirmed cases on the mainland had reached 80,881 by the end of Monday. This includes 3,226 people who died of the disease, 8,976 patients who were still being treated, 68,679 others discharged after recovery, the NHC said.