Originally Posted by
zhaobao
i've always been very curious how various airlines deal with typhoons in HK. One would think everything operates normally even with T3, but clearly this is not the case. And we have also learnt over the years that in many instances flights do take off and land normally even with T8.
So what is the science behind the decision to delay/cancel flights with typhoons ?
Indeed T3 is no problem and there are T8s and T8s.
CX did not reschedule its regional flights (incl. India) that were to land in the morning. They had time to wait for a more precise weather forecast.
The problem was the 15 or so longhaul flights that are typically in the air for 10 hours.
They had to make a decision well ahead of the flights departure time (so over 24h before landing). At the time there was a slight risk that Malto might change path towards HK and become a super typhoon.
WIth the recent incident and HK being very sensitive to media reports, CX decided to reschedule creating some chaos for connecting pax and future longhaul departures. Several hours before Malto hit, its path became clear, but it was too late to change back the longhauls departure time.