Hong Kong Shortens Quarantine to 3 days for all

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Viewing 15 posts - 46 through 60 (of 80 total)

  • christ
    Participant

    I have to say it is sad as every month more and more of my friends (mostly HK born and in 20s and 30s) are leaving and for those who have left, not one has returned. Perhaps they will regret going forward.

    I keep out of the politics and you can have a normal happy life for now (a lot is better than the UK as it is very safe and easy to get everywhere and do a range of sports and beautiful hikes – and people are mostly friendly). I certainly feel for the next few years, HK is a good place to live – hard to comment either way for beyond that.

    It will be interesting to see where we are at the end of the year and if the country does open up.

    Interestingly, BA flights are no not so much expensive when they resume if you originate from London as you can get about £2,500 to £3,000 in Club (First seems to have increased massively). It is not so cheap the other way around.

    There are lots of comments re high prices but there do seem to be some options. As an example to Bangkok, both Emirates and Thai are about HKD 5,000 return even at the last minute (compared to Cathay at about HKD 10,000). From several Cathay captains i know, a lot of intra – Asia flights are quiet as Cathay are pricing themselves out of certain markets but long haul are fairly busy.

    Malaysia and Cathay are about the same to KL (HKD 11,000 return) and I would certainly be going Cathay which uses am A350 with flat beds v Malaysia which mixes with all. Singapore seems fairly similar between Cathay and Singapore Airlines at about HKD 20k business return. Seoul seems to be a lot cheaper on Korean Air on the A380 on some flights (no idea what Korean Air is like but the A380 looks nice).

    Hopefully prices will drop later in the year.

    Oh for BA from LHR to Singapore, I saw lots if flights for £5k return (but as noted October is ridiculous). £5k is still expensive v what it used to be – the flight which ends at Singapore tends to be cheaper than the one which carries on to Sydney.

    So as to renew my BA gold and as i need 2 more sectors on BA, I did manage to get a return flight for HKD 35k which is reasonable as is Cathay business to Singapore and BA first to Sydney (using an upgrade voucher for 2).

    I also have seen of recent some cheapish business flights to US on JAL from HK of about HKD 25k return in business and which i think is good value (this includes Denver and so going to Tokyo, SFO and then connecting on AA). It just seems to take quite a bit of searching to find these odd good fares.

    Also i saw on selected dates some far more reasonable Cathay fares in business of HKD 30k return to LHR (direct) when i looked more thoroughly and so they are there – this was for the odd date in October or November. I think HKD30k is very good value in current climate and the longer flight route.


    cwoodward
    Participant

    The anecdotally reported loadings of Cathay Pacific flights mentioned above by Christ are very incorrect as regards Cathay loadings
    However pilots are perhaps not at the moment the most reliable source of this sort of information as they are currently unhappy about the terms and conditions being offered (since the pandemic pilots of most airlines seem to be the same with many threatening strike action).

    According to the airlines reporting, press reports and our families and business own experiences the loading of almost Cathay flights is well into the 90% hence the pricing. After 3 years of starvation one would be hard pressed to object to the airline charging whatever the market will stand as clearly most prefer flying with Cathay to/from Hong Kong.
    The competition is cheap because they desperately need to put bums on seats – undoubtedly they would charge more if they could unless the aim is to damage Cathays
    strength incertain markets.

    From personal experience I can vouch that flights to/from the US, Canada UK Europe are on most days fully booked. Flights to Manila, Bangkok Auckland.
    Sydney and Melbourne also look to be fully booked on most days. Other Cathay Asian destinations are heavily booked also.
    I needed to talk to the Marco Polo club in order to get my wife on a full Manila flight tomorrow it was empty 15 days ago when we booked and held the fare for 72 hours – my wife was late to complete and the seat and all of the others were gone!

    Cathay clearly is not at the best option to several destinations at the moment if cost alone is the deciding factor but of course they will meet the market as needed going forward.

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    christ
    Participant

    Oh must be very unlucky – I just did a search and there are plenty of seats every day to Manila from HK on a mix of CX 901 and CX 903 (not cheap though admittedly).

    I have not travelled this year and so can only rely what 2 Cathay captains who live in the same block of me have advised. Having said that one of my friends did go to Bangkok on Cathay (he is obsessed with Cathay and will not go on Emirates or Thai) and he said the plane was about 30 percent full and so i do think it is route dependent. Bangkok has 3 (I think) direct options and Emirates and Thai are always around the HKD 5k mark and so strong competition (i cannot compare service as not been on Emirates and Thai but all seem to have flat beds, including Cathay).

    I also did a search to LHR and CX 251 has seats every day for the coming week (between HKD 78k and 95k) for business. Also economy every day for c. HKD 22k return and premium economy for HKD 28k. So they are definitely not full, but of course could nearly be full – actually i think is the case for immediate future as if do search for 9 people, there is only availability on 3 out of 7 days. In contrast, Manila , Bangkok, Singapore and KL are wide open for at least 9 seats every day they fly in the coming week.

    Therefore it does seem to support what I have been told – short to mid haul not overly busy but UK and US (neither which have any competition as no other airline currently flies direct) are very high loads (I also understand Sydney is the same).

    Hopefully more competition comes back soon. As much as AA are not in the same league as Cathay for long haul (unless very lucky with crew), they used to have relatively cheap first class return fares. I never went on United but I understand it used to be similar for them. I am not sure if AA are coming back as it seems it is pulled until at least next summer.

    I really an surprised Virgin have suspended until March 2023 as i did not think they had capacity / aircraft restraints like BA – would have thought it would have been a good opportunity for them to cash in if BA cannot be bothered to rush back,

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    cwoodward
    Participant

    Manila flights normally leave full as Cathay has mentioned and friends( My wife is Filipino) and personal experience is that the flights leave full .

    Also mentioned in many media reports and by the airline is that the flights to UK, Europe, and the US are leaving almost full.

    With less than 20% of its normal schedules operating in July the airline turned an operating profit and that just happen if flying empty aircraft around when also your freight operation is also only operating at 67% of normal capacity.
    The airlines own reports say that most flights to most destinations are over 90% full and being a public company this is almost certainly correct – something of a problem if not.

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    cwoodward
    Participant

    The reduction in quarantine days required seems to be taking effect with 7,500 recorded on Sunday and 6,400 last Monday, several hundred of which were tourists.
    Of course there is a long way to go but given that it takes time to arrange a holiday or business trip and that the quarantine has only been reduced for less than 2 weeks this is I feel a solid start.

    With 26500 Q rooms now available there is absolutely no problem in booking a room,even in the cheaper 3 star category – and rates are reducing.

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    MartynSinclair
    Participant

    cwoodward – it will remain challenging for Europeans/Americans to travel to HKG until the airlines are able to provide reliable daily schedules. I accept CX (pax services) are waking from a ‘slumber’ but odd flights/schedules here and there from mainland Europe plus CX (only) ex UK, is not opening the gates of accessible travel for business people / tourists (as of now). Not forgetting of course the incredible rises in the cost of travel.

    I belong to a couple closed group Facebook groups – the largest one, Hong Kong Quarantine Support with nearly 95,000 subscribers. The horror stories still appearing of people losing thousands when flights cancel, testing positive on arrival and families being split up, the paper checking at HKIA (which I believe is being or has been changed to a semi automated process), will not encourage people to travel for purposes of holiday or business.

    Tourists and business people will no longer accept 3 days of quarantine + 4 days of restrictions. I know you mention you have staff and know friends who are travelling to HKG currently, but there is a difference between travelling for necessity and travelling for business/holiday.

    I know you are supportive & incredibly positive about travel to HKG, but from someone who is a frequent visitor to Asia (from UK), I still see no practical opportunity for visiting clients in HKG, FREELY, until well into 2023 or 2024.

    Asia is opening, HKG needs to follow

    Where can I travel in Asia?

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    tomyam42
    Participant

    Cathay passenger load factor for July was 73.3%

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    cwoodward
    Participant

    While I do not disagree with much of the above Martyn and HK IS ‘following’ fast’ now after the ridiculous policies and intrangance of the previous CE Kerry Lam whos stupidity caused the riots that almost single handedly ruined forever Hong Kong and then as if to make sure continued ridiculously long to outdated quarantine policies as though to make sure Hong Kong was in fact dead.
    BTW She* and her family carry British passports and most of the family resides in the UK where they own property. *unless hers has been cancelled by ether government.

    I would point out Martyn that CX is increasing flights and routes flown now almost daily with London served twice daily and Manchester up to 4/5 times a week. US flights are increasing rapidly in frequency with NY back to daily very soon and other US destinations not far behind. As you allude to above it does take time but when you do get to Hong kong the airport actually functions well and will I am sure continue to do so as it becomes progressively busier.
    The impediment to increasing route frequency more quickly is not any lack of,cash,aircraft or pilots but the AVAILABILITY OF PILOTS as they are caught in an out of date pilot quarantine policy that applies only to the pilots of passenger aircraft and is likely to be scrapped imminently according to press reports
    c
    It is interesting that you mention ‘continuing horror stories’ as a demerit as I would suggest that most of these are in the past. The numbers arriving with the infection are in the past few weeks extremely low with most coming from poorer Asian countries . While no one can properly suggest that quarantine is not an impediment it has become much less so and will I am very confident disappear in the near future.

    I have personally nothing to offer re China mainland and your prediction could well be correct however signs that China will change its quarantine policies sooner rather than later are almost daily gathering momentum and personally I and many that I know in the mainland are predicting radical change within 6 months……and when China changes it will likely do so overnight and without a lot of preamble. An incredible amount of short and long term damage is being done to the mainland economy and the current policy is, those in power know, absolutely unsustainable.

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    IanFromHKG
    Participant

    cwoodward said “ While I do not disagree with much of the above Martyn and HK IS ‘following’ fast’ now after the ridiculous policies and intrangance of the previous CE Kerry Lam whos stupidity caused the riots that almost single handedly ruined forever Hong Kong and then as if to make sure continued ridiculously long to outdated quarantine policies as though to make sure Hong Kong was in fact dead. BTW She* and her family carry British passports and most of the family resides in the UK where they own property. *unless hers has been cancelled by ether government”.

    Leaving aside the typo (Carrie, not Kerry)…

    The Basic Law is very clear (Article 44, emphasis added): “The Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region shall be a Chinese citizen of not less than 40 years of age who is a permanent resident of the Region with no right of abode in any foreign country and has ordinarily resided in Hong Kong for a continuous period of not less than 20 years.” While I agree, cwoodward, with your comments about her stupidity and intransigence, I find it hard to believe that even she was stupid enough to retain a passport that might give her right of abode elsewhere. She *may* (I have no information and haven’t researched it) have had a BN(O) passport (which, as I understand it, used to give a right of abode in the UK but that right was revoked, following the 1984 Sino-British Declaration – one of the more shameful moments in the history of the UK and Hong Kong, IMHO)..

    Mind you, as far as I can see, successive HK governments have breached at least half a dozen articles of the Basic Law (balancing the budget, introducing national security laws [in fairness, this was going to be extremely difficult and their first attempt was so disastrous they didn’t try again, but had they actually tried to engage the people…??? Perhaps say “we will go no further than the existing law, we will just try to codify it so that you are not worse off”? ], not applying mainland laws in Hong Kong, implementing the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, maintaining subventions for educational institutions (noting the very early reduction in subvention to the ESF), ability to use teaching materials originating outside the SAR (compare and contrast Article 136 – reproduced below – and the fact that new teaching materials promulgated by the Education Department specifically deny that Hong Kong was ever a British colony and teachers have been threatened for suggesting otherwise). I could go on, and on and on….

  • Article 136: Educational institutions of all kinds may retain their autonomy and enjoy academic freedom. They may continue to recruit staff and use teaching materials from outside the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. Schools run by religious organizations may continue to provide religious education, including courses in religion.

    What is now happening in Hong Kong,ignoring external sources that HK was a British colony (ignore the weird reference to Australia in the title to the link): https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-61810263

  • Yup, I know I am going off the subject of business travel and into politics, but the problem is that here they are so intertwined. cwoodward has accurately highlighted that so many of our current business travel issues are driven by political issues – the politics of that finally seem to be heading in the right direction, but – I fear – too little and too late. HK – historically the Gateway to China – isn’t even in the top ten any more for airport travel. https://simpleflying.com/singapore-changi-becomes-asias-busiest-airport/

    So sad, so foreseeable, so avoidable, so unnecessary, so stupid….

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cwoodward
Participant

An interesting read Ian – thanks for taking the time although as you would understand I don’t agree with your assessments or your conclusions.

Kerry Lam did have a UK passport at some point not so long ago but perhaps prior to becoming CE it was surrendered. It was of the British British variety and I did have the number at one time.
It is I feel reasonable to assume that that was the case.

Absolutely the family still have UK passports and property in London thus presumably the intention was to retire to the UK at one point.

Would the UK government reinstate K Lams UK passport if asked ? – perhaps not ! The pension would go west and she would have to endure worse insults than did Chris Pattan that well known “eternal villain.” and “tango dancer.” and be cursed for more than a thousand years.
The ‘top ten’ is of course notoriously transigent and I will have a small wager with you that within 3 years Hong Kong will again be ‘Top of the Pops’ in Asia.

Dinner at the Dickens Bar perhaps ?

Enough HK politics !

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cwoodward
Participant

I didn’t mean of course the Dickens Bar Ian (closed a few years now but used to have great Tiffin on Saturday lunch times) but The Chinnery where for many a year I have enjoyed The Lobster Bisque (off menu but always availabl) and I nice dover sole (on the bone please) washed down with a bottle of something French and white

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IanFromHKG
Participant

cwoodward, thank you so much for your posts. We have clashed on many issues over the last few years (and – occasionally – agreed), but I hope you feel (as I do) always in a way that respects our different points of view (although I have to say I am pretty sure of the correctness of my latest statements!).

You are suggesting a wager that I can’t honestly promise to fulfil given the timing you suggest and my impending departure. I hope to return within 3 years (if only to retain my PR status but more likely to see those (few) friends who may at that point still be here) but can’t guarantee it. So…

Both Tom Otley and Martyn Sinclair have my real email address so if they are reading and have yours too, perhaps I can ask that they pass it to you, and we can have an offline discussion purely focused on having, I hope, a very convivial lunch at which we will gloss lightly over our differences and celebrate all that is wonderful about Hong Kong. Happy to host at the Hong Kong Club (where the Dover Sole is, I have been told – although you may disagree, again! – unsurpassed), otherwise it’s you at the Chinnery (I *love* lobster bisque). If that works out you will be the second BT person I have formally met in person (Tom and I had lunch a while back which led to him reviewing a lounge I had recommended). As my (semi-)retirement looms, I look forward to meeting many more.

Back to your post – I don’t pretend to have better information about Ms Lam and her nationality/citizenship/status/whatever except that I am still pretty sure it is “Carrie” not, as you or your autocorrect seem to insist upon, “Kerry” 😉

I suspect, give the current sanction situation, that HMG would not be overly enthusiastic about welcoming Kerry/Carrie back into the fold of British citizenship, but then again, in this world, who knows??

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MartynSinclair
Participant

I would be delighted to join a ‘festive table’ with both cwoodward (who I have not met) and IanFromHongKong (who I have also not met, but has been a great help to me personally, in the past).

I hope this can happen prior to Ian relocating from HKG, BUT I am not keen to suffer any form of Quarantine…….

Lets see what happens in Q3 and 4 / 2022……

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cwoodward
Participant

Martyn – For my part you would be most welcome. The time frame that I mentioned is not arbitrary and where-ever when-ever as far as I am concerned if not in Hong Kong perhaps in London where in normal circumstance I am 2 or 3 times a year for a couple of days on my way to or from somewhere.
In media reports of an interview with the Hong Kong CE yesterday he again emphasised the absolute necessity in getting Hong Kong freely open to the world as being a matter of great urgency!

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IanFromHKG
Participant

Looking forward to meeting both cwoodward and Martyn (thanks also, Martyn, for your own kind words) and many other members of this forum in the years to come!

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