boutela

On the other hand, regular inventory is still available from the 13th of Dec, i.e. no flights are zeroed past the actual cancellations.

Fingers crossed… (Adrian who is on BA27 on the 9th of Jan.)

GordonMacPherson

i quite enjoy the reading where we see who knows about the real situation and not.

China had been saying they had no cases all along early 2020. So keep agreeing with what they post on chinese media is fairly funny.

Let alone the way they treat human lives... like faking the cover up of virus happenings or the well-being of Peng

THAT SAID, BA 28 on 12th is cancelled too and asiamiles protected (some) pax on 13th in case if it's not cancelled.

Globaliser

The formal cancellations now include HKG-LHR on 13 December, so at least that makes more sense than the last batch. It is interesting that BA appears to have mostly zeroed WT+ and WT in the HKG-LHR direction until close to Christmas; it's difficult for us outsiders to know whether that reflects booked loads or is a tactical decision.It's hard to avoid thinking about King Canute, though. Or about how other zero-Covid countries that were struggling to get people to come forward for vaccinations suddenly found that there was much more enthusiasm once there were Covid outbreaks that clearly were not going to get under control. But it's still relatively early days in this pandemic, and we will have to see where all that goes in the longer term, and how much else has changed in the interim.

Globaliser

I see that BA27 LHR-HKG on Monday 13 December, and subsequent flights, are still scheduled and on sale. I wonder whether there will indeed be a restart then.

Joe McGarey

I am not seeing any flights available to book on ba.com until Saturday 18 December now, looks to be cancelled until then. I am booked onto BA27 for 27 December, so it's not looking great!

Globaliser

Thanks for the update. I wonder whether BA is reading this thread, as I checked before I posted earlier! It's helpful to know that the problem has not yet been solved.

Flying Doctor

I guess that the option is that if the money that is there to be made is on cargo services then the flights could operate cargo only with enough pilots etc to fly there and then reload and fly back.
Just seems with crew it will be complicated, the demand is not really there, other airlines (like AF) are pulling out and to set up a 'tag' service with an onward stop in BKK, ICN, MNL etc is probably too much hassle for the small volume.....

FD.

Globaliser

Indeed. For those who haven't seen it, BA is already doing this: BA27 has gone out to HKG on 1, 5, 6 and 7 December and there appears to be a plan to operate another one tonight.

brunos

Indeed. BA has officially cancelled al pax flights until (at least) 18 December. A few cargo only flights operate.
LH also suspended its flights and was planning a BKK stop, but it seems that the idea has been dropped, or delayed.
Wonder what VS is/will do.

Frequentflyer99

Is there any reason why compensation is not payable when these flights are not cancelled until a week before ? I had a flight booked for next Weds (long story) that was not cancelled until today. Are we really operating in the world of extraordinary circumstances justifying such a late cancellation ?

corporate-wage-slave

My first reaction is that dragging the crew off to a prison camp comes across as pretty extraordinary to me. However, trying to be dispassionate about this, it may be that at MCOL level a judge would see this as being fully under BA's control, and therefore not extraordinary, plus of course there should be options for BA to reschedule passengers on to Cathay, Virgin and others within the time limits imposed by EC261. CEDR I can see would probably draw the lines more closely, and thus favour the airline's position. But these are just guessses on my part.

Frequentflyer99

Whilst I take your point re the crew, there are many options available to BA (discussed IIRC in this very thread) which would allow them to operate HK flights with no such risks. In fact, the indications appear to be that many of the flights are operating as cargo flights. This surely means that BA have decided not to carry pax on the flights simply because they do not consider it sufficiently profitable to do so. That is surely not an extraordinary circ ?

Globaliser

Are there really that many viable options? Thinking about potential problems:

Operating cargo-only flights on a non-disembarkation basis requires (IIRC) seven pilots, and BA's aircraft have adequate facilities for one crew to rest all the way out there (and, less critically, for the other crew to rest all the way back). And the pilots are not customer-facing staff when doing that. However, is that directly applicable if BA tries to operate passenger flights? For example, is it actually that easy to ensure that there's enough rest space for an additional dozen or so cabin crew on these flights? Are regulatory waivers as easy to get for cabin crew? Is it reasonable for BA only to use volunteers? Are there enough volunteers for this kind of duty? And is it that easy to ensure that the cabin crew operating the inbound are sufficiently (to put it delicately) fresh and presentable in customer-facing roles for the inbound?

The alternative appears to be to make a tech stop short of HKG, and have a crew operate only the XXX-HKG-XXX tag ends. But are there any readily viable spots for XXX? AIUI, BA is not currently operating to BKK, NRT, HND or ICN, and SIN is probably not viable because AIUI transit/transfer at SIN en route to HKG is banned.

A third option might be to regard BA as failing to take reasonable measures by not forcing crew to operate to HKG on the normal basis, notwithstanding what has been described as a rebellion (see Hong Kong Cancellations) as a result of what has happened in Hong Kong. No doubt it would be theoretically possible for BA to take such a hardline stance, but what would BA then do when the crew nevertheless refuse to operate? Sack anyone who's rostered to HKG and who refuses to fly?

As I've said in another thread, the word "surely" in a post about stuff like this always rings alarm bells. However, the one thing that I can be absolutely confident about is that neither you nor I have enough information on which to base any criticism of BA. We can have no idea whether it's just a question of profit, we really can't.

Im a new user

One could argue that the risk of being sent to a prison camp is an extraordinary circumstance and that it is therefore permitted to cancel the flight. One could also argue that BA should have learnt about the prison camp living conditions from the first instance this happened and had sufficient time to make the necessary adjustments by now, meaning it's no longer something extraordinary.

I would also look at what happens with passengers' rebookings. Are they rebooked on the next BA flight (which could be weeks later) or are they rebooked on other airlines (direct or connecting)? If they are rebooked on the next BA flight, then I don't think that BA takes all reasonable measures to reduce the delay, meaning that compensation is due.

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.