Hong Kong reopening: will BA resume services?
 

With this morning’s news that HK hotel quarantine is to end, is BA now likely to resume services?

Possibly. My understanding is that it will still be PCR on arrival. Also whilst you will be able to travel around HK in the first three days, you will not be able to enter most venues (e.g. restaurants, bars etc.).

So whilst it is an improvement, I am still not sure it is tempting for most people - unless you really need to go.

I agree it’s not going to be a first choice leisure destination but there is huge pent up business demand.

With Russian airspace closed to flights, I assume the journey will be somewhat longer than the usual 10:30 approx. I think the Cathay flights are currently going south over Central Asia and taking about 12 hours.

As per SCMP they quote Lo Chung-mau as saying:

https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/...gtype=homepage

So with two PCRs required it is more like 0+3+risk.

Th CX westbound flight to LHR is now 14.5 and closer to 15 hours on some days :D what a joy.

With such a long flight time now I personally wouldn’t be too keen to hop on a BA flight unless they sort out their inflight catering first.

Y Fares to HK are dirt cheap though at the moment so I you want to bet on things reopening by next year, for instance May BH in next year we have

- £370 return by LH, LX
- £520 return Virgin
- £581 by CX
- £650 by QR
- £700 BA

Despite their crappy and unreliable schedule I would still prefer CX over BA in all honesty (keeping in mind it’s now a 12-13h flight eastbound and 14-15h flight westbound - do you wanna risk arriving starving because BA went all cheap with catering as we know, why pay more if you are guaranteed better service with CX/QR)

It's 4 PCRs and 7 rapid tests

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...from-next-week

TESTING REGIMEN:

• Day 0: PCR at airport, plus rapid test. Movement restrictions in place
• Day 1: Rapid test. Movement restrictions in place
• Day 2: PCR plus rapid test. Movement restrictions in place
• Day 3: Rapid test. Movement restrictions lifted in the morning if previous test is negative
• Day 4: PCR plus rapid test. Allowed to move freely
• Day 5: Rapid test. Allowed to move freely
• Day 6: PCR plus rapid test. Allowed to move freely
• Day 7: Rapid test. Allowed to move freely

Obviously going through their "Thailand" phase and trying to find as many infections as possible.

What a ludicrous pantomime 😂

Dancing to Beijing’s tune, as in everything.

China is in a pickle. Low natural immunity in the general population via v strict lock-down process, poorly performing domestic vaccine plus unwillingness to use western ones and a bad ratio of ICU beds per head of population. Glad I’m not China’s health minister.

From a pure leisure point of view, that's not really reopening.

At the moment BA still have their passenger flights to HKG restarting from Dec 5th and I would think the hassle of moving that forward when they can route people via Qatar in the meantime would make restarting flights any earlier a low probability.

Pilot37

Looks like a classic example of where people can do something but will choose not to. The small print is horrendous and discretionary travel to Hong Kong is likely to be small. I doubt BA will allocate significant resources to Hong Kong in the near future.

Has anyone seen announcements of requirements for transit only, and access to lounges etc? Unless PCR and RAT testing is not on the agenda for transiting passengers I wouldn't be chancing CX for transit in the way Singapore was 6 months ago.

The latest policy mainly caters to Hongkongers going out of HK, and not really to attract tourists in to salvage the economy. In fact it can achieve the direct opposite effect, where Hongkongers leave for foreign travel, and local restaurants and hotels become quieter and lose business, without significant inbound tourists to cover the loss.

At HK$8.5 to the pound it looks like being a very expensive leisure destination!

Fortunately I'm well hedged but I cant see many others being that fortunate.