German airline Lufthansa is facing the heat as coronavirus impacts travel demand. As a response to the coronavirus outbreak, the airline has decided to cut its flight capacity by a fifth which is equal to grounding 150 aircraft from its fleet, Reuters reported on Wednesday.

Around a sixth of the capacity cut by the airline is for its long-haul flights. The airline had already announced on Friday that it will be cutting the flight capacity for its medium and short-haul flights by up to 25 per cent in the coming weeks according to the report.

With companies curbing business trips, and travel bans across the world, airlines are facing immense pressure to balance the costs.

IT majors such as Infosys, Wipro and other IT companies have restricted its employees from travelling to China, Hong Kong and Macau apart from banning all non-essential travel across its global offices according to previous reports.

According to a survey of over 10,000 people across the country, 72 per cent people said that they would not be travelling internationally due to the potential risks posed by the COVID-19 outbreak.

According to media reports, British airline Virgin Atlantic said that it would be cutting costs to withstand the reduced travel demand. Emirates, on the other hand, asked employees to take one-month unpaid leave as it had more resources than required owing to the reduced number of passengers, Reuters reported.

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