Thanks for the replies...I've been following the story in the SCMP (and in the NY Times today) but as was noted in this forum earlier the SCMP doesn't seem to be the best source on this story - I wish I could read the the chinese language papers. I've been reading the bulletin boards and I guess things don't look so good at present.

But from what it looks like this might take a while...I guess I'll hold off booking for another week or so; I really want to fly CX. If it doesn't work out then I'll be on SQ and Ansett (hardly a bad thing) but I really had my heart set on it.