Potential Disruption - Typhoon Usagi
 

Weather forecast agencies around the world have forecasted that the typhoon may severly impact HKG in a few days time.

Based on the current forecasts by HK Observatory, on Sunday night (22 Sep), winds of up to 33 knots will be coming from the west or north-west, with gusts being higher as well, and precipitation is expected.

I think there is a chance that the crosswind component may exceed the stated limits for some aircrafts.

The weather may also worsen on Monday, but the degree of which will depends on the typhoon's path and strength. (Note that weather forecasts are not an exact science).

CX and other airlines have not posted any advisories or alerts yet, although it's best to keep an eye out for it if you're travelling to/from HKG from Sun to Tue.

According to colleagues at work, CX has briefed their pilots this morning and is considering it a potential T10 scenario on Monday....

That's going to make my 8.30 am Monday flight to Singapore really interesting!

Cathay issues a special update:
http://www.cathaypacific.com/cx/en_H...tes/usagi.html

I am on CX872 at 0030 - keeping my fingers crossed.

Good that I am on 10am flight to Osaka on Sunday instead of Monday!

I have a flight back to SIN on Sunday at around 8pm - CX715. I am keeping my fingers very crossed as I need to be back by wee hours of Sunday as I have something on on Monday morning. Pretty worried now.

Can you travel earlier? The few flights in the afternoon might be just able to make it out in time.

I can try the 4pm flight. But mine is promotional I class ticket which CX will levy S$300 for any change of flight. Still thinking if I should pay to make the change to be safe.

if whatever it is you have to do is worth more than than 300$ I would do it.

To give a comparison India had some air space restrictions this week which meant my MH flight from SIN via KUL to BOM was delayed to arriving to 0200 in the morning on Tuesday. As I had a busy day on Tuesday including an internal flight I last minute booked another J flight on SQ obviously at a seriously higher price. I cancelled my MH flight and will eventually get a refund minus SGD 75. However I got over 100K in new business and I'm fairly sure being "with it" rather than totally knackered on Tuesday as a result of rebooking was a great help in securing the business. who knows...but a small price to pay for a better night sleep for whatever you have to do the next day.

If it moves a bit south it will be almost a direct hit on HK!

I'd say level 10++ airport will be closed.

Well HK only have Typhoon Signal 1 / 3 / 8 / 9 / 10.... so I don't know how you get the 10++

HKIA can operate when it is Typhoon signal 8 when the wind is not affecting the airport, however when at 9 or 10 as the typhoon is in close proximity to Hong Kong, HKIA halt flight operations as needed.

The second biggest concern is my flight leaving to NRT on thursday. It will certainly take nearly a week to get the back logged of people out if the airport is closed or flights cancelled monday. Not only that, hopefully the earthquake in japan didn't cause any major damage!

current storm track is looking bad. Upgraded to level 5 super typhoon...looks to track south of taiwan but that puts a track right to HKG....

Potential Disruption - Typhoon Usagi
 

Yikes. No flying this weekend but rather rules out my BBQ plans. It is heading straight for us.

Keep in mind that signal 8 is for winds >34 knots, so if the airport is being affected by such wind and if it's all crosswind, there won't be anyone landing or taking off.

Current forecasted tracks look like it's going straight for HKG, but the typhoon is about to go through the gap between Taiwan and the Phillipines. This is a critical time as far as storms are concerned, since both direction and strength can be affected by being near or having to go past land. We'll get a much better idea of the track and how much it will weaken in the next 24 hours.