Le coronavirus has claimed another victim, this time in Hong KongThis is the time of year when airlines are reviewing their global services and even temporarily suspending their flights. The aim is to cope with a sharp fall in demand. The Hong Kong airline Cathay Pacific has made drastic cuts to its schedule until the end of March, reducing its long-haul offer by a third. The airline is cancelling its flights to Milan Malpensa, Rome and London-Gatwick - but retaining its frequencies to Heathrow -, reducing its service to the UK from 4 to 2 flights a week, and reducing the number of flights to the UK from 1 to 2. Barcelona and Manchester. On Brussels and Frankfurtthe airline is closing some of its economy fare classes in February and March.
On its connections to Asia and the Pacific, the airline is reducing its frequencies to Adelaide, Auckland, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney. In total, with its subsidiary Cathay Dragon, the company is reducing its flight capacity by 50% until the end of March. But on the Chinaits offer is now down by 90%. Both carriers now only offer flights to Chengdu, BeijingShanghai Pudong and Hongqiao, as well as Xiamen, with a much reduced flight schedule. In total, Cathay Pacific and Cathay Dragon now offer only 39 weekly flights to these destinations until the end of March, compared with 368 flights a week before the crisis.
In the rest of Asia, the collapse in demand is leading to sharp reductions in frequencies. The hardest hit is the Hong Kong-TaipeiThe Taiwanese government demanded that all passengers arriving from mainland China, Hong Kong and Macao be quarantined for 14 days. Cathay now offers only four flights a week to the island instead of 92 previously, and has also suspended services to Kaohsiung and Taichung, two other major Taiwanese cities.
Cathay is also suspending its flights to Clark and Davao in the Philippines and Jeju in Korea until the end of March, and has reduced its service to Manila by 75%. It has reduced services to Fukuoka, Hanoi, Jakarta, Nagoya, Penang, Phnom Penh and Phuket by 50% and between 25% and 35% to BangkokKuala Lumpur, Osaka, Rangoon, SeoulSingapore and Tokyo Narita.
Such measures jeopardise the role of the hub at Hong Kong International Airport. These measures are more drastic than during the SARS at 2003. At that time, the airline reduced its capacity by 45%. As a result, Hong Kong airport is expected to see a drop in passenger activity of more than 50% in February and March. The airport has already affected by demonstrations and violence of last year, with a decline in passenger traffic of 4.5% in 2019, for a total of 71.54 million.
Cathay Pacific has also imposed a three-week unpaid leave to be taken in the next few months for the company's 23,000 employees. The carrier expects to lose money in the first half of its financial year.
Other airlines that have announced flight reductions to Hong Kong include AirAsia, China Airlines, Emirates, Etihad, Eva Air, Korean Air, Philippines Airlines and Singapore Airlines, while American Airlines and United Airlines have discontinued their services.
