Finance

With Hurricane Helene disrupting travel, here’s what fliers need to know

Published

6 months ago

October 1, 2024

Men inspect the damage from flooding in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene on Sept. 28, 2024 in Asheville, North Carolina.

Sean Rayford | Getty Images News | Getty Images

As the Southeast U.S. recovers in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene’s destruction, consumers looking to change their air travel plans to or from affected areas without taking a financial hit may be out of luck, experts said.

“The big-picture issue that happens in U.S. air travel: When there is a significant disruption, air passengers have very, very limited rights” when it comes to compensation, said Eric Napoli, chief legal officer at AirHelp, an online service that assists airline passengers.

‘Catastrophic damage’

Asheville Mayor on Helene damage: No neighborhood has been spared, entering a 'desperate' situation

The North Carolina Department of Transportation urged people to avoid unnecessary travel in the western part of the state due to hundreds of road closures from downed trees, landslides and “catastrophic damage.”

What airlines owe passengers

Amid that destruction, travelers hoping to change flights for free or cancel their plans for a refund may find airlines unwilling to grant that financially flexibility.

Airlines do generally owe “prompt” refunds to passengers if they cancel or make a “significant change” to a flight, regardless of the reason, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. That’s true even for consumers with non-refundable tickets.

However, weather-related events like Hurricane Helene are generally considered to be outside an airline’s control, meaning passengers have relatively few rights to compensation, experts said.

The airline’s duty in such cases generally depends on a passenger’s specific fare, such as economy or business class, Napoli said.

“There’s nothing [airlines] will do for you” if your conference was canceled and you don’t have a ticket that grants free cancellation or comes without fees for changes, he said.

Airlines make concessions in some cases

Damage to a store in Valdosta, Georgia, from Hurricane Helene.

Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Some airlines are making concessions tied to Hurricane Helene, though they vary by carrier and geography.

“All the rules are different,” said Sally French, a travel expert at NerdWallet.

Many major U.S. carriers have dedicated webpages for travel alerts outlining their policies around specific events, she said.

For example, American Airlines, Delta Airlines and United Airlines have alerts about flooding in the Southeast. Many focus on areas around Asheville, North Carolina, and some parts of Georgia like the city of Valdosta.

United is waiving change fees and fare differences for passengers whose flight was affected by flooding and who choose to reschedule their flight, for example.

United’s policy comes with parameters: Passengers must have purchased their ticket before Sept. 26, for travel between Sept. 30 and Oct. 31, 2024; the new flight must be a United flight leaving by the end of 2024 and between the same cities as originally booked. Those who cancel can get a full refund.

American Airlines is also giving leeway to passengers scheduled to travel through Augusta, Georgia, between Sept. 29 and Oct. 4. They must book changes by Oct. 4.

Delta passengers scheduled to fly through Asheville or Valdosta must travel on rebooked flights by Oct. 18 to avoid paying a fare difference. Change fees would still be waived past that date, however.

Read the specifics of insurance policies

Travel insurance isn’t always a fail-safe in the event consumers can’t get reimbursed from the travel provider for a flight, hotel or other travel expenses, experts said.

If you didn’t purchase a cancel-for-any-reason policy, your trip problems typically have to fall under specific, covered reasons. Plus, policies bought after Helene became a named storm generally won’t cover claims related to it.

“Make sure you read the fine print and what the insurance is actually covering,” Napoli said.

Consumers who purchased their trip with a credit card may get certain travel reimbursement benefits from their card issuer, sometimes even in the case of severe weather, French said. Credit-card companies generally require a “quick turnaround” on a claim, often within 21 days, she said.

Finance

China’s response to U.S. tariffs will likely focus on stimulus, trade

Published

2 hours ago

April 3, 2025

Business Finance News

Chinese national flags flutter on boats near shipping containers at the Yangshan Port outside Shanghai, China, February 7, 2025.

Go Nakamura | Reuters

BEIJING — China’s reaction to new U.S. tariffs will likely focus on domestic stimulus and strengthening ties with trading partners, according to analysts based in Greater China.

Hours after U.S. President Donald Trump announced additional 34% tariffs on China, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce called on the U.S. to cancel the tariffs, and vowed unspecified countermeasures. The sweeping U.S. policy also slapped new duties on the European Union and major Asian countries.

Chinese exports to the U.S. this year had already been hit by 20% in additional tariffs, raising the total rate on shipments from China to 54%, among the highest levied by the Trump administration. The effective rate for individual product lines can vary.

But, as has been the case, the closing line of the Chinese statement was a call to negotiate.

“I think the focus of China’s response in the near term won’t be retaliatory tariffs or such measures,” said Bruce Pang, adjunct associate professor at CUHK Business School. That’s according to a CNBC translation of the Chinese-language statement.

Instead, Pang expects China to focus on improving its own economy by diversifying export destinations and products, as well as doubling down on its priority of boosting domestic consumption.

Watch for cascading tariffs as tariffs reroute trade within Asia, says economist

China, the world’s second-largest economy, has since September stepped up stimulus efforts by expanding the fiscal deficit, increasing a consumption trade-in subsidy program and calling for a halt in the real estate slump. Notably, Chinese President Xi Jinping held a rare meeting with tech entrepreneurs including Alibaba founder Jack Ma in February, in a show of support for the private sector.

The policy reversal — from regulatory tightening in recent years — reflects how Beijing has been “anticipating the coming slowdown or even crash in exports,” Macquarie’s Chief China Economist Larry Hu said in a report, ahead of Trump’s latest tariff announcement. He pointed out that the pandemic-induced export boom of 2021 enabled Beijing to “launch a massive regulatory campaign.”

“My view stays the same,” Hu said in an email Thursday. “Beijing will use domestic stimulus to offset the impact of tariffs, so that they could still achieve the growth target of ‘around 5%.'”

Instead of retaliatory tariffs, Hu also expects Beijing will focus on still using blacklists, export controls on critical minerals and probes into foreign companies in China. Hu also anticipates China will keep the yuan strong against the U.S. dollar and resist calls from retailers to cut prices — as a way to push inflationary pressure onto the U.S.

China’s top leaders in early March announced they would pursue a target of around 5% growth in gross domestic product this year, a task they emphasized would require “very arduous work” to achieve. The finance ministry also hinted it could increase fiscal support if needed.

About 20% of China’s economy relies on exports, according to Goldman Sachs. They previously estimated that new U.S. tariffs of around 60% on China would lower real GDP by around 2 percentage points. The firm still maintains a full-year forecast of 4.5% GDP growth.

Changing global trade

What’s different from the impact of tariffs under Trump’s first term is that China is not the only target, but one of a swath of countries facing hefty levies on their exports to the U.S. Some of these countries, such as Vietnam and Thailand, had served as alternate routes for Chinese goods to reach the U.S.

At the Chinese export hub of Yiwu on Thursday, businesses seemed nonchalant about the impact of the new U.S. tariffs, due to a perception their overseas competitors wouldn’t gain an advantage, said Cameron Johnson, a Shanghai-based senior partner at consulting firm Tidalwave Solutions.

He pointed out that previously, the U.S. had focused its trade measures on forcing companies to remove China from their supply chains and go to other countries. But Chinese manufacturers had expanded overseas alongside that diversification, he said.

“The reality is this [new U.S. tariff policy] essentially gives most of Asia and Africa to China, and the U.S. is not prepared,” Johnson said. He expects China won’t make things unnecessarily difficult for U.S. businesses operating in the country and instead will try harder to build other trade relationships.

Since Trump’s first four-year term ended in early 2021, China has increased its trade with Southeast Asia so much that the region is now Beijing’s largest trading partner, followed by the European Union and then the U.S.

The 10 member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) joined China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand in forming the world’s largest free trade bloc — the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) — which came into being in early 2022. The U.S. and India are not members of the RCEP.

“RCEP member countries will naturally deepen trade ties with one another,” Yue Su, principal economist, China, at the Economist Intelligence Unit, said in a note Thursday.

“This is also partly because China’s economy is likely to remain the most — or at least among the most—stable in relative terms, given the government’s strong commitment to its growth targets and its readiness to deploy fiscal policy measures when needed,” she said.

Uncertainties remain

The extent to which all countries will be slapped with tariffs this week remains uncertain as Trump is widely expected to use the duties as a negotiating tactic, especially with China.

He said last week the U.S. could lower its tariffs on China to help close a deal for Beijing-based ByteDance to sell TikTok’s U.S. operations.

But the level of new tariffs on China was worse than many investors expected.

“Unlike some of the optimistic market forecasts, we do not expect a US-China bilateral grand bargain,” Ting Lu, chief China economist at Nomura, said in a note Thursday.

“We expect tensions between these two mega economies to worsen significantly,” he said, “especially as China has been making large strides in high-tech sectors, including AI and robotics.”