Good afternoon,

As promised last night after the announcement that President Trump clarified through Twitter that his travel suspension proclamation only affects passengers and not goods specifically, we are providing further insight learned today.

At this point, we remain uncertain as to how this executive order will affect  commercial flights from Europe to the United States since the volumes of passengers may be substantially decreased, thus potentially affecting the operation of those flights and in turn, available cargo space for forwarder shipments. We will continue to express our concern to the media and government officials. In response to the COVID-19 situation and travel ban, our friends at The International Air Cargo Association (IATA) released this reaction statement for review this afternoon.

As stated last night, we reached out to the Small Business Administration since the President also announced that the agency has been authorized to help support businesses during this time. The agency has responded and will be providing details pertaining to our request on how members can take advantage of this assistance shortly.

Finally, U.S. Customs & Border Protection (CBP) will host a call tomorrow (Friday) to discuss coronavirus impacts on trade and cargo. Since space is limited, I will share all information discussed during the call with our members tomorrow.

Please let us know if you have any questions or feedback. This is a rapidly developing situation so please monitor your e-mail for our upcoming messages.

Sincerely,

Brandon Fried

Executive Director