Cathay Pacific will cancel an unspecified number of passenger flights to and from Hong Kong after the city tightened quarantine rules for aircrew, the airline said in a statement Thursday.
The Cathay statement said Hong Kong’s “latest tightening of aircrew quarantine restrictions continues to constrain our ability to operate flights as planned. We are making further significant changes to our flight schedule, including cancellations of passenger flights to and from Hong Kong from now to tentatively the first quarter of 2022.”
“We intend to operate a skeleton passenger flight schedule in January.”
It’s yet another setback for the embattled Hong Kong flag carrier, which has been dealt several blows by the city’s strict coronavirus border rules.
In a separate statement Friday, Cathay said it was suspending long-haul cargo flights into the city for one week, effective immediately.
The flight cancellations are expected to further isolate Hong Kong as the financial hub remains one of the only places in Asia, alongside mainland China, to stick to a rigid zero-Covid strategy.
“We sincerely apologise for the disruption caused. We will be working with customers to mitigate the disruption as much as possible,” the airline said.
In an email to CNN, Hong Kong’s Transport and Housing Bureau did not elaborate on changes to current aircrew quarantine restrictions.
Flight bans: Cathay’s announcement follows Hong Kong’s suspension of some international routes into the city for major airlines including Qatar Airways, Emirates, Korean Air, Turkish Airlines, Cebu Pacific and Finnair.
Hong Kong has temporarily banned some passenger flights from New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, Helsinki, London, Dubai, Doha, Bangkok, Korea, Istanbul and Manila after imported Covid-19 cases were recorded in patients arriving from these destinations.
The Hong Kong government said it will review temporary bans on flight routes in early January 2022.
