Looks like a summer mad rush home for students

Students attending schools and universities overseas may need to rush to return to Hong Kong for the summer holidays as Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor stood firm on the much-criticized Covid flight circuit breaker policy.

And some quarantine hotels are fully booked until the end of July.

An education consultancy told The Standard that it had received some 3,000 inquiries from anxious students and parents who cannot book flights and quarantine hotel rooms.

Speaking yesterday, Lam said the average occupancy rate at quarantine hotels is 60 to 70 percent.

Nine more hotels that were used as isolation facilities will be turned into quarantine hotels for overseas arrivals starting next month, adding about 3,000 more rooms.

But Lam said it is necessary to retain the flight circuit-breaker mechanism as the SAR has to prevent imported cases from spreading into the community.

Cathay Pacific's latest schedule shows a nearly threefold increase in the number of flights from London to Hong Kong in June. But Virgin Atlantic said earlier it will not resume flights to Hong Kong until September and British Airways said it will not have flights to Hong Kong before May 29.

Although the government eased the flight ban rule on Friday, raising the Covid-19 case threshold of its circuit-breaker mechanism from three to five passengers, or 5 percent of passengers, many people are still hesitant to book their trips to Hong Kong, worried that their flights could be canceled at any time.

A mother whose 13-year-old daughter studies in the United Kingdom said she is lucky to have secured a flight ticket and a quarantine hotel for her daughter's return next month, but the flight suspension mechanism still poses uncertainties.

She said before Cathay increased its London-to-SAR flight frequency from every nine days to daily in June, many people had chosen to take connecting flights to Hong Kong via other European cities such as Frankfurt.

"But my daughter is too young and her only option is a direct flight from London. It'd be a nightmare if the flights from Frankfurt are suspended and my daughter is stuck in a third country," she said.

The mother eventually secured a plane ticket for her daughter to fly back on June 27, but now she is scared the flight suspension could be triggered unexpectedly.

"I can't rest easier until my daughter's plane leaves the runway in the UK," she said.

The mother said a flight cancellation will create a domino effect affecting her quarantine hotel booking too, although she had planned way ahead and made her booking in January, when flights from the UK were banned.

"The hotel I booked allows me to change my booking, but if it is fully occupied in the summer holiday, it may not be able to offer me a room to match my new schedule, if my daughter's flight is unfortunately canceled," she said.

Harvey, a Hong Kong student at Columbia University in the United States, said: "Of course the suspension mechanism would make us worry. We would never know when the flight would be suspended.

"In the worst-case scenario, if we reach a transfer spot - as there are not many direct flights, and then the airline gets suspended, then what should we do? Should we stay or return?"

Harvey said yesterday that he is planning to return in August. If his flight is canceled, he has no choice but to return to his dormitory on campus.

Samuel Chan Sze-ming, managing director of Hong Kong-based education consultancy Britannia StudyLink, said his agency has received 3,000 inquiries from students and parents who cannot book flights and quarantine hotels. Most of them are primary and secondary students studying abroad, Chan said, adding they found it difficult to secure flights.

Even if they have successfully booked tickets, they still face the risk of unpredictable flight suspension, he said.

Chan added that many parents have also been preparing to let their children stay abroad, including looking for host families and summer courses.

Hong Kong Tourism Association executive director Timothy Chui Ting-pong said the government is looking for more hotels providing cheap rooms to receive returning overseas students in June and July.

Chui said the 3,000 new quarantine hotel rooms could receive 12,000 travelers a month. But whether these rooms will be enough depends on the number of flights arriving in Hong Kong.

Chinese University economist Simon Lee Siu-po has said the flight circuit-breaker policy has caused huge damage to Hong Kong's aviation status as flights arriving in Hong Kong these days are fewer than at N'djili Airport in Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The latest to be hit by the circuit-breaker policy is Cathay Pacific, with its flights from London banned for seven days after flight CX252 carried three Covid-positive passengers on Monday.

The SAR recorded 12 imported cases yesterday, including three testing positive on day 12 upon arrival from Indonesia, South Africa and Singapore.