Cathay adding 2,000 flighs as demand surges

Cathay Pacific will add nearly 2,000 flights including to London, Tokyo, Osaka and Sapporo in the next two months amid a surge of demand following the SAR’s cancellation of hotel quarantine for arrivals.

The SAR’s flagship carrier will also schedule another 400-plus flights to Asia and longhaul destinations while resuming five routes this month to Madrid, Dubai, Kathmandu, Milan and Bengaluru in India.

The takeoff news came as Hong Kong yesterday reported just over 400 imported Covid-19 cases – the most in a single day since the SAR’s first case was reported on January 22, 2020.

Still, Cathay said it had seen travel business improve last month, which was supported by student traffic from Hong Kong and the mainland.

“Overall passenger numbers further increased month on month to over 8,800 per day, while [patronage] was 72.5 percent,” said Cathay’s chief customer and commercial officer, Ronald Lam Siu-por. “Passenger flight capacity stood at about 16 percent of pre-pandemic levels.”

Although demand for student travel to the United States eased down from the second week of last month, it was balanced by a surge from UK-bound students, he said.

And the airline increased Hong Kong-UK flights from 111 in August to 134 last month, with 96 percent patronage.

“Inbound traffic to Hong Kong also improved, largely driven by demand from the United States and Canada,” Lam said. “In the last week of September we saw a considerable 

increase in demand for flights to Singapore, Bangkok and Seoul.”

Next month will also see close to 700 flights being added and then 1,200 in December. They will account for more than 500,000 seats.

Among them, 140,000 seats will be allotted for Osaka, Tokyo’s Narita and Haneda airports plus Sapporo. They come with 146 additional Japanese flights next month and 234 in December, covering the Christmas peak season.

London’s Heathrow Airport will see 31,500 seats on additional flights over the coming two months, with four daily flights on certain days in December.

First class cabins will also return on prime London Heathrow flights from December 5.

The cost of Cathay tickets to Japan, one of the most popular destinations for Hongkongers, had dropped to HK$6,833 for a one-way ticket to Narita airport even for the Christmas and New Year holiday period, according to the airline’s booking site last night. 

For a week-long round trip departing and returning on weekdays the cheapest tickets are HK$5,798.

Meanwhile, Korean Air will increase flights between Hong Kong and Incheon from seven to 11 per week in December.

Asiana Airlines is also gearing to increase weekly flights to South Korea from five to seven in that month.

Yesterday was also the 1,000th day from when Covid first struck Hong Kong.

Since the start it has claimed 10,278 lives in the SAR, while there have been more than 1.84 million citizens infected.

The Centre for Health Protection yesterday reported 5,361 infections – 4,954 locally transmitted and 407 imported – as the daily caseload surpassed 5,000 for a fifth straight day.

Five more deaths of four men and a woman aged from 63 to 96 linked to Covid were also reported yesterday, with two of the cases from care homes.

But government Covid adviser Ivan Hung Fan-ngai was looking on a brighter side, saying Hong Kong was hopeful for “full resumption to normalcy” by next summer.

Hung also said a vast majority of citizens have been vaccinated or have recovered from Covid infections, so the SAR has established “herd immunity.”

While he cautioned on radio that with the emergence of new and more contagious subvariants the infection numbers will increase the ratio of severe cases will remain low.

Also on radio, infectious disease expert Ho Pak-leung suggested authorities should shorten quarantine for infected people to five days from seven and also cancel self-isolation rules for close contacts.