The John F. Kennedy International Airport was nearly deserted Thursday morning as only a few passengers waited for their flights out of New York City.
Daigo Takayama, 35, who was visiting the Big Apple, shared photos with the DailyMail.com showing empty terminals at the airport.
‘I have been traveling my entire life, in and out of airports constantly. I have never seen JFK airport so empty,’ Takayama told DailyMail.com.
‘It feels like I am in a small town airport. Only about 30 per cent of people are wearing masks and the others don’t seem stressed by the possible danger of the situation,’ he added.
Takayama shared a photo of himself wearing a mask as he waited for his flight with Japan Airlines on Thursday.
His photos showed about eight people standing and sitting in JFK’s Terminal 1. Restaurants and shops were abandoned and there weren’t any long lines at the Starbucks.
Daigo Takayama, 35, who was visiting the Big Apple, shared photos with the Dailymail.com showing an empty Terminal 1 at the John F. Kennedy International Airport on Thursday morning
Restaurants (left) were abandoned and there weren’t any long lines at the airport’s Starbucks (right) Thursday morning
The airport’s shops were also empty Thursday morning as the fear of catching the coronavirus spreads through the US
There were no long lines at the check-in counters (pictured, check-in and self check-in) for most of the airport’s airlines
Takayama wasn’t supposed to leave New York until next Monday, but out of fear of being stuck in the US due to the more than 600 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 16 deaths that have been reported in Japan, he hopped on a flight to Nagoya, Japan, a few days early.
He said he went to the airport on Wednesday hoping he wouldn’t be charged for changing his flight after making the decision to leave early because he wasn’t sure how Japan’s handling of the virus would progress in the next few days, referring to the US travel ban and Italy’s lockdown.
Italy’s prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, placed the entire country on lockdown on Monday in an attempt to stop the spread of the virus.
Trump bans visitors from Europe from entering the US for 30 days starting at midnight on Friday – but excludes the UK and Ireland – in effort to staunch coronavirus pandemic.
President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday night that flights from Europe, excluding the UK and Ireland, would be suspended for 30 days beginning midnight on Friday.
Trump’s decision to impose the ban on most Europeans entering the US sparked ‘bedlam’ at airports across the continent, with some travelers paying as much as $20,000 for plane tickets home.
Tourists from the US, who were left shrouded in confusion by the details of the proposal, scrambled to airports in the early hours of Thursday morning uncertain about how the ban would impact their attempts to fly back home.
Confusion reigned over exactly how it would be implemented – including how the cut-off would apply across time zones and which routes Americans would be allowed to use to get home.
Vice President Mike Pence fueled the coronavirus chaos on Thursday by saying all Americans returning from coronavirus ‘epicenter’ Europe will be asked to self-quarantine for 14 days upon arrival and be funneled through one of 13 airports, without confirming if they would receive COVID-19 tests or saying where those ports were.
Oval Office address: Trump finally addressed the nation about the coronavirus crisis from the White House on Wednesday and banned all travel to Europe
There more than 1,300 cases of the virus in the US and 38 people have died (depicted above)
Journalist Mike McIntire tweeted from Charles de Gaulle airport: ‘Bedlam at U.S.-bound airlines at CDG in Paris early this a.m., as Americans pay as much as $20,000 for last-minute flights.’
The White House has also not yet explained what will be done, if anything, to stop people traveling from other countries in Europe to the UK or Ireland then boarding flights to the US to work around the ban.
There are already more than 1,300 cases of the virus in the US and 38 people have died.
Trump’s announcement has disrupted the travel plans of tens of thousands of people and hit airlines already reeling from the coronavirus outbreak, which has been branded a pandemic.
The State Department also warned Americans against all non-essential travel abroad, raising the prospect of mandatory quarantines and further bans that could leave people stranded.
It’s unclear what travel restrictions, if any, will be imposed on Americans who wish to continue their domestic travels in the US.
But medical experts don’t believe that domestic travel restrictions will stop the virus from spreading.
Vice President Pence has even said that there has been no talk of limiting travel in the United States.
EU condemns Trump’s decision to restrict travel from Europe to the US over the coronavirus
On Thursday, the European Union lashed out at Trump’s ‘unilateral’ decision to restrict travel from Europe to the United States over the coronavirus, saying that the illness doesn’t respect borders.
Trump has called the disease a ‘foreign virus’ and claimed that US clusters were ‘seeded’ by European travelers.
He announced that all European travel would be cut off, but US officials later said that restrictions would apply only to most foreign citizens who have been in Europe’s passport-free travel zone at any point in the 14 days prior to their arrival in the US.
‘The European Union disapproves of the fact that the US decision to impose a travel ban was taken unilaterally and without consultation,’ European Council President Charles Michel and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a joint statement.
‘The European Union disapproves of the fact that the US decision to impose a travel ban was taken unilaterally and without consultation,’ European Council President Charles Michel and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen (pictured) said in a joint statement
‘The coronavirus is a global crisis, not limited to any continent, and it requires cooperation rather than unilateral action,’ the EU said. A man wears a protective mask as he checks in at a kiosk in the main terminal of Brussels International Airport in Brussels on Thursday
‘The coronavirus is a global crisis, not limited to any continent, and it requires cooperation rather than unilateral action,’ the two said.
They rejected Trump’s suggestion that Europe is not doing enough to combat COVID-19, saying that the 27-nation bloc ‘is taking strong action to limit the spread of the virus’.
The so-called Schengen area comprises 26 countries including EU members France, Italy, Germany, Greece, Austria and Belgium, where the bloc has its headquarters, but also others like Switzerland, Norway and Iceland.
The restrictions announced by Trump don’t apply to the United Kingdom, where the number of confirmed cases has reached almost 460, with eight deaths, or Ireland, which isn’t part of Schengen, and has 43 cases.
According to flight tracker FlightAware, around 400 flights cross the Atlantic from Europe to the United States each day.
JetBlue’s CEO says the plummet of global travel and airlines sales is ‘probably worse’ than the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks
On Wednesday, JetBlue CEO Robin Hayes said the plummet of global travel and airlines sales is ‘probably worse’ than the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks where the airline business saw a 30 per cent drop in business.
‘This is the sort of event in the airline industry we only tend to see about once every 10 years,’ Hayes said on CBS This Morning.
JetBlue airlines has seen a 20 per cent drop in sales since the first case of coronavirus was confirmed in the US back in January.
Tourists from the US, who were left shrouded in confusion by the details of the proposal, scrambled to airports in the early hours of Thursday morning uncertain about how the ban would impact their attempts to fly back home. People wait to check in for a flight to Chicago at the United Airlines counter at Brussels International Airport on Thursday
Paris Charles de Gaulle airport, France: People wearing protective face masks line up at the Air France ticketing desk inside Terminal 2E at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport in Roissy on Thursday
As a precautionary move the airline cut domestic flights due to a decline in passengers, increased the frequency of cleaning and sanitizing planes, and jump-started a special response team to monitor the virus.
Hayes says that the virus’ impact is ‘devastating’.
JetBlue numbers were stable and ‘good’ he said in January and February, but started to wane around February 25.
But Hayes is warning the public that flying by plane is ‘as safe as everything else you do in your daily life’.
‘We’ve done a number of things. First of all, we are deep cleaning and sanitizing and disinfecting our airplanes every night. In addition, we have wipes on board so customers can come on and can wipe down their seat if they want to sort of take some additional precautions.’
COVID-19 has killed more than 4,600 people worldwide and there are still more than 125,000 confirmed cases globally.
Pence repeated previous claims that the government had asked private labs including Lab Corp and Quest Diagnostics to speed up the production of their tests, after a wave of criticism over how long the CDC was taking to get theirs off the ground.
But he failed to address some key specifics including how or if the ban will impact trade and imports from Europe, or how many people will likely become infected in America despite the drastic new measures.
World health officials have already undermined Trump’s plan. They say it will not stop the virus from spreading and that the administration should be focusing its efforts on the healthcare system, which will likely buckle under the strain of the pandemic if it reaches the proportions seen in China and Italy.
Also on Wednesday night, the NBA suspended its season indefinitely in light of the president’s announcement, postponing all games.
The decision – the first of its kind – came after it was revealed that Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert had tested positive for the virus.
Mass gatherings have not yet been banned in the US but in Europe, football games have all been scrapped until further notice.
In Italy, group gatherings like weddings and funerals are not allowed and even stores are closing to try to contain the virus.