My Aug 2 (today) CX549 flight was cancelled. Leaving Tokyo 4.30pm / arriving HKG @ 8pm .
The flight was cancelled on evening of Aug 1

CX548 HKG - HND today also cancelled.

Angry passengers at Hong Kong airport charge at Cathay Pacific’s security cordon after delays and cancellations
http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/h...-charge-cathay

Oh well that makes more sense. HKG was completely shut down all morning so as CX548 was unable to leave there is no aircraft in Tokyo to operate the return CX549.

Silver lining
 

Was booked to fly PEK to HKG at 8:30PM on 1 August and on to JFK on 2 August. PEK to HKG was unceremoniously cancelled and I was SOL.

Could not get through to MPC DM line so had no choice to show up at PEK to seek alternate arrangements. KA staff rebooked me to fly via NRT on NH - what a blessing in disguise!

1. Catering so much better than CX
2. 1-2-1 seating config with flat bed seat and comparable IFE
3. Good crew. Older on average than CX but I kind of like it. Experience often helps.
4. Will arrive in NY @ 4:25PM vs. 10PM on CX840

To top it off I found out that the one way PEK to NY was HKD40k vs. HKD50k on CX.

Only downside is that I did not get to drop HK to change clothes before heading to NY.

Horrible..are these incidents of bad behaviour getting more frequent, or are they just being reported more often?

So do you know why the pilot tried to land? Seemed pretty cavalier given that the warning had been in effect for hours with no recent arrivals at HKG.

No idea about that but SQ transferred quite a number of pax onto our flight from TPE to SIN which made sense if they were going to SIN. Also at SIN there were plenty of staff waiting for those who were connecting to KUL, BKK etc. It seemed proactively handled.

THe only thing I overheard was that the plane was literally about to touch down and then whoosh off it went again....

We'll probably never know why, but it certainly seems very cavalier....who knows if it was the captain, or the company exerting pressure, or some other factor.

But the basic facts are:
*There were zero aircraft within 1000nm with HKG as their final destination as SQ1 set course for HKG and tried to land. It was the only bird in the sky and it was totally unnecessary for it to be there...considering it flew directly over TPE en route to HKG.
*Weather was dreadful, known by pretty much everyone in the aviation community. This includes SQ, who delayed their morning departures to HKG as a result. In fact, SQ had chosen to delay its morning ex-SIN departures to HKG right around the same time SQ1 was flying over TPE the first time. Brilliant.
*SQ1 passed directly over TPE en route to HKG (where it ultimately diverted back to). Mind you, TPE was chock full of planes not trying to go to HKG, and waiting it out on the ground.
*It can't just be chalked up to "well, SQ isn't a local HK airline, it was trying to complete its long-haul mission"...every other mid and long-haul flight scheduled to land this morning from a non-HK carrier was delayed, cancelled or rescheduled. Every. Single. One. NZ, EK, AH, heaps of cargo, etc. SQ1 was literally the only guy attempting it.

It would be one thing if a few other aircraft were trying the same thing. But this SQ flight was the only plane for a thousand miles that was attempting such a feat, and flying over diversion airports to boot.

My bet is SQ hadn't prepared a replacement crew to be in TPE, which led to the incentives to make an attempt. Not inspiring.

Ask KACommuter. The crew point- requires a bit of thought & judgment -not something that the organisation is spoken of for - my money: 'the manual' required them to be sure sure (aka try first, and be sure) that it was unsafe to land.

Saw B-KPM parked by cargo area at JFK yesterday and again this am. Meanwhile it looks like the afternoon CX flight to HKG departed yesterday and the inbound CX889 also arrived as normal into JFK today.

Yeah lah 😄

Flight from San Francisco to Hong Kong has to abort landing and divert to Taipei because of turbulence during Typhoon Nida http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/h...-abort-landing

And yet, here we sit in Manhattan.

T8 is not the reason CX did what it did; it was the significant chances for T9 and T10. When you have winds exceeding 50 knots, planes can flip or otherwise get damaged. Foreign airlines having one plane broken isn't too costly, but for local airlines it's a different magnitude.

I don't know if CX did this common practice often done elsewhere which is called EVACUATION. Operate as many as possible outbound flights and have them sit at outports.

If the worst was going to be T8, there was no need for total suspension. But it was a typhoon pointing straight at HK. In the end, it made landfall to the east and significantly weakened. Both sides of the eyewall passed over HK, but the wind strength was pathetic.

...not quite. You need crew to fly the planes.

CX cannot order the crews to the airport during T8 conditions, given how much transport shuts down in HKG. Whether or not you think it's safe is irrelevant. The simple fact is when the Observatory raises the T8 flag, protocol across the city go into effect. Including virtually all ferry and most bus services shut down, some subway/train services shut down, and taxi (and most private auto) insurance is invalid. CX has something like 15,000 cockpit+cabin crew spread out across HKG and they don't control where the crew live. You can't force them to come to work in a T8, regardless on your take on how strong it is.

If you're familiar with CX's rostering situation, you'll also know that rosters are not comprised of where people live. CX888, one of the flights cancelled the night of the typhoon, could've easily had a captain from Discovery Bay, an ISM from Aberdeen, a SP from Lamma Island, a FSO from Sai Kung, BCs from Yuen Long, etc. Of course, CX does know which crew are on standby in Tung Chung, but you'd burn through those in a heartbeat, and then what? You're even more screwed than when you started.

I made the initial mistake (as seen above) of thinking CX was too cautious. But after talking to a few folks, I realized there isn't much they can do given all the protocol that go into effect in the city during a T8. CX simply has too many crew all over the place.

Instead, what happens is all the rostered crew whose flights were cancelled go onto standby, which allows for a quick recovery of the situation as soon as it passes.