Major airline axes nearly ALL flights to Australia – with only planes into Sydney surviving the cull after tough new restrictions were brought in
Cathay Pacific is to axe nearly all its Australian flights thanks to tough new government restrictions in Hong Kong.
The airline said on Thursday it plans to cull most of it flights to Australia after the Hong Kong government announced it would force all flight staff to undergo 14 days of quarantine when they return to China.
The cull – expected to come into effect on February 20 – means Cathay Pacific’s only flights in and out of Australia will be five flights a week between Sydney and Hong Kong.
‘With effect from 20 February 2021 our Hong Kong-based pilots and cabin crew are required to undergo 14 days of hotel quarantine plus 7 days of medical surveillance when they return to Hong Kong after being on duty,’ the airline said in a statement.
‘The new measure will have a significant impact on our ability to service our passenger and cargo markets.’
The airline will continue running long-haul flights from Hong Kong to Los Angeles, New York, Toronto, London and Amsterdam as well as Sydney.
The reduced schedule will be in place only until the end of February, but Cathay executives have not ruled out extending the flight reductions into next month.
‘We are actively managing our crew resources to plan for our flight services for March 2021,’ the airline said.
Under the new rules in Hong Kong, pilots and cabin crew flying into Hong Kong International Airport must quarantine for 14 days in a hotel and then spend seven further days being monitored for Covid-19 in the community.
The decision comes just a month after Emirates went back on its decision to suspend all of its flights to Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.
The airline said on January 15 the varying ‘requirements implemented by the different state authorities’ meant it could no longer justify its long-haul flights into Australia’s three biggest cities.
A week later though, the carrier said it would restart its flights into Australia from January 25 to January 28.
In October, Cathay Pacific announced 8,500 job losses and shuttered a regional carrier as it grappled with the plunge in air travel due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
