On January 30, the World Health Organization (WHO) convened to discuss the coronavirus outbreak in China and declared it a public health emergency of international concern.
As of press time, the WHO reported nearly 30,000 cases worldwide, leading to about 600 deaths.
As a result, more and more airlines, including Air Canada, are cancelling flights to China. Many of these flights are cargo flights — including the ones from Halifax that routinely ship Atlantic Canadian lobster and other seafood products to Chinese markets.
SeafoodNews reported that Skylease Air Cargo, a charter company that is based in Miami, has suspended its Boeing 747–400 flights that haul lobster and other seafood from Nova Scotia’s Halifax Stanfield International to China.
“The logistical network in China is all bottled up,” Glen Boone, director of cargo and real estate development for the airport authority told FreightWaves of Skylease Air Cargo’s decision to suspend flights.
“Perishable products like lobster — you can’t move it if you can’t move it fast. If the logistical chain on either side is stopped, you can’t send a perishable product.”
China has been struggling with the deadly coronavirus outbreak since December 2019.
The virus has resulted in the country issuing quarantine measures in the city of Wuhan, where the outbreak is believed to have started at South China Seafood City, also known as the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market.
Some seafood exporters in the U.S. and Canada are already facing inventory issues because the importers are stuck with existing, unsold seafood and others are canceling new orders as people cancel travel plans and subsequently hotel and restaurant reservations.
Locally, this shutting down of the export infrastructure has already had an impact on the lobster industry, leading to a drop in price. Normally the period between the Lunar New Year and Valentine’s Day is the time of the season when harvesters realize some of their highest prices for lobster. Now with processors having large inventories of unsold lobster in their pounds, fishermen will undoubtedly see lower prices for the duration of the coronavirus crisis.
