KLM gives China flight crew medical masks due to Covid fears

Airline KLM said on Wednesday it is taking immediate extra safety measures on flights from China because of crew concerns about coronavirus.

Personnel will now be equipped with medical quality FFP2 face masks and protective goggles and will have their own toilet facilities to try to reduce the spread of the virus. Masks were already a requirement for both crew and passengers.

Contacts between crew and passengers are also being reduced to a minimum.

KLM has three weekly services to China and that is due to double at the end of the month.

Coronavirus infections in China have soared since all restrictions were lifted last month and a number of countries, including the US, Japan and Italy have introduced compulsory testing for passengers.

From Thursday, the Netherlands will offer passengers arriving from China a free coronavirus test, but the aim is to establish what the dominant variants in China are, rather than reduce infections.

Passengers found to have coronavirus will not be subject to quarantine.

In addition, the RIVM public health institute is stepping up its monitoring of coronavirus particles in waste water at Schiphol, again to monitor different variants.