China urges US airlines to ensure passenger rights after flight returns

China has urged United States airlines to ensure passengers' legitimate rights after a China-bound flight returned to the US midair, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in the US said today.

The sudden rerouting of the December 21 flight from Seattle to Shanghai caused huge losses to Chinese passengers as their visas and COVID-19 tests expired and could no longer meet time requirements, the spokesperson said.

The Chinese embassy is communicating with US airlines to discuss the specific technical issues and solutions to avoid such things from happening again, he said, denying that the rerouting was caused by China's refusal of its entry.

The embassy said it has noticed that thousands of flights have been canceled in recent days as the Omicron variant of COVID-19 hits airline workers and some crew members were afraid of carrying out duties.

"The new cleaning procedures require significantly extended ground time and are not operationally viable for Delta," a Delta spokesman said. "We apologize for any inconvenience this is causing for customers as we continue to work on rebooking on alternate flights."