Airlines Suspend Hong Kong Flights Over New Coronavirus Tests For Crews

By: Ben Schlappig

Published: July 9, 2020

37 comments

Airlines are facing so many challenges when it comes to operating international flights, from lack of demand to constantly changing government restrictions. Well, it looks like US airlines now have a major new issue with operating Hong Kong flights.

In this post:

American & United cancel HKG flights

American Airlines and United Airlines had both cancelled passenger flights to Hong Kong as of March, and the plan was for them to resume flights to Hong Kong as of this month:

American was supposed to fly between Dallas and Hong Kong as of July 9
United started flying between San Francisco and Hong Kong as of July 6

American Airlines was supposed to resume Hong Kong flights today

These service resumptions are in spite of strict entry requirements, which essentially only allow locals to return to Hong Kong. However, these flights are probably viable for a couple of reasons:

Cargo has become an even bigger source of revenue for major airlines than before, so in many cases flights could be profitable even with very few passengers onboard
Hong Kong Airport started allowing transit passengers as of last month

Anyway, unfortunately Hong Kong service was short-lived for United, and never happened for American. United Airlines cancelled its San Francisco to Hong Kong flight yesterday…

…and American cancelled its Dallas to Hong Kong flight today.

We should expect these cancellations to continue. What exactly is going on?

Hong Kong’s new crew testing requirement

All passengers arriving in Hong Kong have to undergo testing, which is part of Hong Kong’s plan to stop the spread of coronavirus. Historically airline crews have been exempt from this, but this has changed.

Arriving airline crews are now expected to go to the nearby AsiaWorld-Expo and undergo coronavirus testing before their layovers. The unions representing pilots at both American and United have raised objections to this, to the point that they’re refusing to work Hong Kong flights.

What problem do pilots apparently have with this? @xJonNYC shares the following regarding what’s going on at American:

According to the notice issued by the Centre for Health Protection, anyone with a positive test sample would be admitted to a hospital “as soon as possible,” and anyone refusing to submit to testing would be subject to fine and imprisonment.

Upon learning of the new testing requirements, APA immediately contacted management to discuss the situation and raise concerns, both contractual and other, about the new testing requirements that crew members would be subjected to upon arrival. Discussions have been ongoing regarding this matter since yesterday, and management has advised APA that it is suspending all flying to HKG until Aug. 5, as it works with the appropriate authorities to address the concerns regarding the testing mandate.

hearing that united services to HKG are being imminently suspended due to new crew testing requirements.

Today’s SFO-HKG-SIN flight has been canceled due to entry restrictions.

And it looks like all pilots on layover in HKG have deadheaded back to SFO today.
UNCONFIRMED.

— JonNYC (@xJonNYC) July 8, 2020

I’ve heard that specifically there are a few different aspects of this that pilots object to, including:

The amount of timing that the testing adds to their day, especially after such a long flight
How invasive the PCR test is
The need to be hospitalized with any positive test
The potential implications if one crew member tests positive; does that mean the entire crew would have to go into a 14-day quarantine in Hong Kong?

Hong Kong is now testing arriving airline crews

Bottom line

I’ll be curious to see how this situation evolves regarding crew testing in Hong Kong. In this case I can’t blame crews for expressing concerns about what happens if a crew member tests positive.

Not only would that crew member allegedly need to be hospitalized, but what would happen to the rest of the crew? Would everyone be stuck with a 14-day quarantine in Hong Kong? This is why crews are asking for testing to instead happen before departure, so that if they do test positive, they won’t be stuck in another country.

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Alicia Guest

July 14, 2020, 11:38 am

In my opinion, every country have their own protocol to contain the virus, it’s what work best for them (at different time or stage). HK is a very dense city, it can go out of control if they don’t take further measures. Since HK announced and started to test aircrew and seacrew members on July 8th... up until yesterday (July 13th) they’ve already found a handful of crew members tested positive, which all have the potential to import the virus into the city. It’s a loophole they want to close. Just to name a few (not complete) who tested positive within 5 days (most asymptomatic, but a few had minor symptoms): 1 FedEx pilot from USA 3 ship crew from Philippines 2 ship crew from India 1 ship crew from Finland 1 ship crew from Germany 1 ship crew from Turkey 1 aircrew from Azerbaijan 2 ship crew from Malaysia 4 pilots from Kazakhstan 1 aircrew from Kazakhstan 1 aircrew from Philippines 1 aircrew from UK

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Tim Diamond

July 12, 2020, 1:14 pm

@David, that's quiet the accusation of my math comprehension. Yes, there is a chance that the rate of death will increase...time will tell but so far the numbers do not bear that out. Hospitalizations have increased in some areas. You must know that when media reports ICU beds full that's because they are full of non-covid patients who delayed surgeries. Houston is often mentioned but covid patients in ICU account for less than 25% there. But consider that most new infections are under age 35 compared to Feb/Mar when it was over 60. This virus is less severe for younger people. Also, the treatments have improved greatly -- even recent hydroxychloroquine studies have shown it very effective in early stages of infection. Think of NY & NJ. Early in pandemic they had huge and swift infections. Now, their infection rates have slowed greatly. One likely reason is that initial infections were during winter when people were indoors together with recirculated air for prolonged periods. Now consider the four hot spots (CA, AZ, TX & FL)...it is summer and very hot in those places and people are indoors together with recirculated air for prolonged periods. And it's less likely due to reopening because there are other states such as CO that reopened at same time and they don't see an infection rise because they have more temperate climates where people can be outdoors. So CA closing beaches is silly and not supported by science. So NY has likely reached a plateau because so many died off and infections were high early on. And the calls for a national response is also silly because epidemiology requires nimble local responses. Imagine the same response in NY compared to SD or WY...makes zero sense. And since you are an extremely stable genius in math, the death rates per 100,000 show an interesting picture (from statista.com): #1 NJ #2 NY #3 CT #4 MA #5 RI #10 MD #15 CO #16 AZ #20 OH #25 FL #30 CA #35 SD #40 TX #45 UT #49 WY #50 MT It's really simple if you apply some basic math.

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David Diamond

July 10, 2020, 9:20 pm

@Tim You're showing your completely lack of understanding when it comes to simple math. It takes time for patients to die after the onset of symptoms, which means if daily new cases are accelerating, then death rate naturally drops (since the newly infected have not had time to go through the entire cycle yet). Over time the death rate will catch up. It's really simply if you just apply some basic math.

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asprino Guest

July 10, 2020, 7:56 am

@Tim "flatten the curve" is the buzzword used in the West. For most APEC countries (e.g. Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Thailand, Singapore), the goal is "containment". They are trying to eradicate local cases and close the border to seal off imported cases.

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Tim Diamond

July 10, 2020, 2:57 am

When was the goal to eliminate the spread of c19? It was always flatten the curve of only the RATE of infections...the total number of infections will always be the same until there is either herd immunity or a vaccine. Yes, huge surges in infection rates in U.S. but with a diminishing death rate! Now at 0.04% which is less than a typical flu season. And CDC says infection rate is likely up to 26 times higher than tested. Hello, does anyone comprehend this?!!

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