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.

We're currently booked KHH-HKG on Sunday afternoon. Might give CX a call and see if we can shift that to TPE to HKG for Sunday morning.

Usagi will be close to KHH on Saturday. CX might thank you for it.

And you might want to make it early Sunday morning. Latest JTWC (US) forecasts for 70% chance of >34 knots winds by 2pm (local time) on Sun.
http://www.tropicalstormrisk.com/tra...c/201317W.html

It doesn't have wind direction or gusts predictions, but IMHO, with the storm's forecasted location, expect gusty north westlies - plenty of crosswind "fun" there.

then again T3 or monsoons can reach levels where crosswinds is too much for operations.

I have a MH flight to KUL at 3pm on Sunday
How does that look?

Any thoughts on CX operations on the morning of the 24th?

scheduled to leave on cx 873 tonight and arrive in hk sunday morning, I don't think that flight will be affected right? Arriving sunday morning should be safe i assume. However, 2-4 days of rain won't be fun. There's go the start of a vacation.

http://www.cathaypacific.com/cx/en_H...tes/usagi.html

CX is now encouraging and offering free flight/date change for flights on Sunday-Monday. Expected that the operation will be most affected Sunday Afternoon through to Monday, with likelihood for full suspension of operation.

My flight is scheduled to depart at 7.05pm on Sunday but I'm concerned this will not be possible. I'm flying with Emirates but have not found any information as to what their procedures will be? Would it be possible to change to an earlier flight since I need to be back in the UK on Tuesday.

You should contact EK directly as they may put out an advisory soon (within the next few hours) for changing flights etc.

In the case of disruption non-based airlines such as EK will suffer from less disruption than HK based airlines like CX, as they have less passengers/aircraft/logistics to deal with.But that doesn't mean EK flights won't be delayed or cancelled. Particularly if HKG needs to close, or the inbound flight is diverted and unable to land in HKG.

I just read that the storm is expected to hit around sat evening. My flight 873 departs sfo at 1am on 21st and arrive Sunday 6am. I wonder if we'll be flying and then be redirected or maybe they will cancel my flight?

No the storm is not expected to be affecting HKG until around Sunday Afternoon. Sunday morning early morning arrivals should not be affected at this stage.

Also, normally CX, when there is expected inclement weather in HKG, all flights will carry extra fuel to lessen the chance of diversion, but again this should not be a problem for early morning sunday arrivals.

Glad to hear. I'm schedule to depart for NRT on Thursday morning. Assuming that it's a direct hit and the airport is closed for 1 day, do you think it'll be choatic for flights leaving thursday or friday? I remember back in 2008 I was caught in the typhoon and i was scheduled to fly out 4-5 days after typhoon and the back log was crazy. It was a nightmare at the airport trying to get on my flight and was ultimately denied boarding and was put on another flight the next day. I waited 3-4 hours in line to get to the counter to check my bags ony to find out that I won't be able to board that flight. They claimed that I wasn't at the counter 45 min before departure but the customer service rep assured me that I will get on my flight etc. I found out that they gave my seat away to a standby passenger who's flight was cancelled a couple of days earlier.

I would say, as long as the flight you are on is not itself cancelled, back log or not those passengers with an operating flight in the days after any disruption will still fly as per normal. And of course by Thursday flights should be operating normally.I would think the main disruption periods could be Sunday lunchtime onwards until Tuesday morning.
The main disruption is for passengers whose flights were cancelled, as they have to try to get on other flights which are already full. They are the ones that will be affected.

I am lucky enough I have not had a cancelled flight with CX before due to typhoon so far. But I was on a cancelled LHR flight during the Iceland Volcano a couple of years back. Once flights re-started, those passengers who were booked on flights operating normally, flew on time. It was the people like myself that had to wait to get on a next available flight, as our original flight had been cancelled.

some slight weakening but models show track right at HKG.

Too late to change, PEK-HKG tomorrow (Sunday) on CX347 and then HKG-SIN CX635 at 3.20pm.

Have not been through HKG during a typhoon signal beore, what can I expect for my flights?

Thanks,
Globalst

Here is the latest info from CX's website (posted at 12:00 noon Hong Kong time):

"Cathay Pacific advises that due to the anticipated impact of Super Typhoon Usagi approaching, the operations at Hong Kong will stop from 18:00 on 22 September (Sunday) through 23 September (Monday)."

I would assume that this covers all flights, and not just CX's.

been waiting for 20 mins on the DM marco polo line. (can;t make the change online, annoyingly).

may get fed up and just wing it on Monday re -rescheduling my Sunday night SGN - HKG flight, which is surely cancelled...

Wirelessly posted (beckoa's BB: Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9810; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.11+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/7.1.0.694 Mobile Safari/534.11+)

I'd imagine a bit bumpy :o

And probably the Ngong Ping 360 tram not operating either...

So got through. My flight is 8pm HK time on Sunday night( arriving into HKG at ~11pm). I assume, per social media postinga, that it is cancelled. MPC agent said they knew nothing about any cancellations (lol, really!!?).

I am in Y class w/ a mileage upgrade to J. First availability apparently is Weds (Mon and Tues fully booked, which never happens on this route in J, so i assume the are blocking space for Sunday pax who get cancelled).

I didn't preemptively re-book into Weds, as she said my flight was sill scheduled. If the Sunday flight is cancelled, which I can only assume it will be, I am going to roll the dice re CX trying to accommodate a longterm DM member on the Monday flight, rather than making me wait another two days (or making me fly Y). We shall see.

Yuck. I'm supposed to be flying into HKG from CGK at 5am Monday morning, and then off to ORD in the late morning.

Am I likely to be not let fly from CGK, or held in HKG? I'm flying in J/F.

The cable car has been under annual maintenance for a whole and won't be finished by end of September

Long lines at Hong Kong Airport Express Checking
 

I had been planning to spend a few days in Shenzhen, followed by a trip to Chennai. Since the Shenzhen Monday forecast is for Typhoon, I booked a flight to India tonight.

The checking lines at HK Airport Express are the longest I have seen in a dozen trips.

Sorry if I'm being a bit slow, but are there already queues for the Airport Express because of the typhoon?

Yes, long queues at in town check-in because of the typhoon.

I hope that everyone queueing up is sure that they actually have a seat on a flight that is leaving ;)