Originally Posted by
Flying Doctor
I have to agree with this.
Given that you have to undergo 21 days quarantine on arrival in HKG (and you cannot enter unless a HK resident) I cannot really imagine more than a handful of passengers wanting to fly there (it will be for personal/family reasons). Although flights out of HKG might do slightly better (expats leaving etc) I still doubt it is that busy. When the USA had tight restrictions flights were regularly operating with 30 passengers total and service frequencies were a fraction of normal. To have enough space for a double crew (there and back) that means F and probably half of J is needed for crew rest. Honestly I don't see many crew wanting to do a 12 hour sector x2 very often like this when there are plenty of places they can do which are operating as normal. And no matter what you say there is always the risk something happens, then you get stuck and its 3 weeks away from a home in shoebox.
Tag sectors never make a bean. BA is on record saying this more than once which is why they don't like operating them. They just don't work. For 30 passengers to have multiple crews on rotation - erm this just won't happen.
So there is basically no demand for this route and won't be until HKG opens up so I doubt that HKG will operate on anything more than an intermittent basis at present. Just the way it is.......
FD.
I would not say that there is no demand.
In the good old days, CX/BA/VS operated some 9 daily flights from UK, plus those pax connecting via QR from parts of UK.
The leisure/conference traffic is gone. Business traffic is very small but still exists. However, they are lots of family split between HK and UK who have not reunited for a long time. Many HK students in UK and some UK exchange students. There can be seasonal demand from those, especially near the holidays. 21 days quarantine is very painful, but not a total deterrent.
The few CX flights are very full in December (both directions).
I don't mean that there is huge demand, but certainly significant pax demand (plus cargo) for some flights every week. CX cannot offer many flights because of the strict quarantine rules on its crew when they return to HK. In a way BA is in a better situation than CX quarantine-wise.