Cathay Pacific decided to suspend flights to Melbourne, Brisbane, and Perth from February 20 till at least the beginning of March, after the Hong Kong government imposed strict new quarantine guidelines on airline crew.
Only the airline’s 5 weekly flights between Hong Kong and Sydney will stay in place, according to the Oneworld member’s latest schedule update.
However it’s not just those three Australian cities within the firing line: Cathay will also halt flights to Frankfurt, San Francisco, Vancouver, Saigon, Seoul, and Kuala Lumpur.
Cathay last month warned that the proposed crew quarantine guidelines may see the airline scrap one-third of its current passenger services, which are already a shadow of the airline’s pre-pandemic glory days.
“The new measure will have a significant impact on our ability to service our passenger and cargo markets,” noted Cathay Pacific Chief Operating Officer Ronald Lam.
In response, a government spokesperson mentioned it was calling on “the (airline) industry to join our concerted efforts to fight the virus.”
The Hong Kong government is pushing ahead with tough plans to impose a 14-day hotel quarantine rule for crew returning from any nation apart from China, after which they’ll be subject to additional COVID-19 tests through today 20.
This will have a dramatic knock-on impact on those crew being rostered onto any other Cathay Pacific flight, with estimates that cabin attendants and pilots will able to operate only one long-range flight per month.
As previously reported, Cathay Pacific still hopes to return to Australia in strength by the end of this yr and replace its older Airbus A330s and Boeing 777s with an all-Airbus A350 fleet which will let travelers enjoy the Oneworld member’s latest business and premium economy seats.
