Airline responses to Japan quake, radiation fears

Commercial passenger jets are parked at Yokota Air Base after diverting from Narita International Airport as a result of the magnitude 8.9 earthquake that struck Japan on March 11, 2011.

(Reuters) - Airlines were monitoring the situation in Japan on Tuesday and some cancelled flights as fears grew of nuclear contamination in the wake of the devastating earthquake and tsunami.

Following is a summary of responses from airlines to the Japan crisis:

BRITAIN: Virgin Atlantic says no change to schedules to Tokyo. Airline says it flies once a day to Narita and is monitoring the situation. British Airways BAY.L says has no changes to schedules so far to Tokyo's Narita and Haneda airports. Flies to Narita once a day and Haneda five times a week.

CHINA: Air China (0753.HK) (601111.SS) has cancelled some flights to Japan, mainly due to the operational capacity of some airports there. Air China operates 30 round trip flights per day, providing more than 7,000 seats. Carrier said earlier on its website it had cancelled flights from Beijing and Shanghai to Tokyo on Tuesday.

China Airlines (2610.TW) also says it will closely monitor the situation and cancel some flights to Japan if necessary.

A source at a cargo delivery company in Shanghai said there had been no cancellations yet of cargo flights from Shanghai to Japan, but there was concern over radiation among some cargo companies, which have avoided using Japanese airlines heading to and from Japan, he said.

FRANCE: Air France-KLM (AIRF.PA) says has from Tuesday to Sunday increased capacity on its two daily flights from Paris to Tokyo to 944 seats in total from the usual 871. These two flights make a stop-over in Seoul.

Airline said earlier it had moved all of its crew on March 14 out of Tokyo to Osaka.

GERMANY: Deutsche Lufthansa (LHAG.DE) says diverting planes meant for Tokyo to Osaka and Nagoya via Seoul and that this schedule would remain in place until the weekend.

HONG KONG: Cathay Pacific (0293.HK) says monitoring situation carefully and so far there had been no authoritative suggestion that flight operations to Japan are likely to be affected.

ITALY: Alitalia says for now its flights to Tokyo and Osaka continue as normal. Alitalia runs 14 flights per week to Tokyo Narita from Rome and Milan and four flights per week to Osaka.

MALAYSIA: AirAsia (AIRA.KL), Asia's largest budget carrier by fleet size, and Malaysian Airline System (MASM.KL), the country's national carrier, say they are flying to Tokyo without any disruption to schedules yet. They say they are monitoring the situation.

NEW ZEALAND: Air New Zealand AIR.NZ flights to Tokyo are continuing as per schedule for the time being but are being reviewed in the light of new information.

PHILIPPINES: Flights from Manila to Japan scheduled to fly as normal. Cebu Pacific (CEB.PS) said normal operations continued, with no cancellations.

SINGAPORE: Singapore Airlines (SIAL.SI) says on its website it is closely monitoring developments but that at this point, all its flights to and from Japan are operating as scheduled.

SWEDEN: SAS (SAS.ST) says flights operating to Japan as normal, though it does not have a scheduled departure (from Copenhagen) today. It had to cancel one flight last week when Narita was closed.

SAS says it has no crew currently in Tokyo having withdrawn them for safety reasons. Wednesday's flight to Tokyo will land in Beijing to pick up a crew to fly back to Stockholm.

SWITZERLAND: Swiss International Air Lines says the airline is flying once a day to Tokyo with an interim stop in Hong Kong, allowing them to reassess the situation in Tokyo and shorten turnaround time in Tokyo. Crews change in Hong Kong. Swiss has no plans to evacuate anyone from Japan.

TAIWAN: EVA Airways (2618.TW), Taiwan's No.2 airline, says will cancel flights to Tokyo and Sapporo until the end of March.

THAILAND: Thai Airways International THAI.BK still flying to Tokyo as of Tuesday morning but senior executives were in a meeting and the situation could change.

UNITED STATES: American Airlines AMR.N and Delta Air Lines Inc (DAL.N) say they were not cancelling flights and operations were continuing as normal.

Boeing Co (BA.N) says no plans to evacuate employees from Japan and expects no major impact on suppliers after Japan's earthquake.

VIETNAM: Vietnam Airlines says no basis yet for the flag carrier to cut flights to Japan but says the number of passengers flying between the two countries on Vietnam Airlines had fallen in recent days.

(Reporting by Reuters bureaus; Compiled by World Desk Asia and David Cutler, London Editorial Reference Unit; Editing by David Holmes)