Planes, trains and an extra night in Chinatown as four reporters find their way back to Hong Kong amid flight disruptions at airport
- Hong Kong’s airport authority on Monday suspended all outbound and inbound flights, affecting hundreds of planes, after thousands of protesters occupied the airport terminal
- Service resumed gradually on Tuesday morning, as airlines worked their way through the backlog
Four South China Morning Post reporters were caught on Monday by disruptions in the Hong Kong International Airport, as they were flying back to the city from assignments and holiday in Beijing, Singapore, Hangzhou and Seoul.
The Hong Kong airport authority cancelled all outbound flights at 4pm on Monday, after thousands of protesters occupied the airfield’s departure hall, preventing departing passengers from checking in. The cancellations affected thousands of connections in Asia’s air transport hub, and spilled over to the second day as airlines struggled to resume service.
Liu Yujing
Lightning may not strike the same place twice, but cancelled flights can very well happen twice to the same passenger.
My flight on Air China’s CA107, which was supposed to take off from Beijing at 8:20pm tonight for arrival in Hong Kong after midnight, was cancelled due to protests at the Hong Kong airport, the second disruption in my return journey in as many days. The flight was delayed from its original departure time of 6:15pm.
I was flying to Hong Kong on Cathay Pacific Airways’ CX331 from Beijing on Monday, a code-shared service between Hong Kong’s hometown airline and China’s flag carrier, originally scheduled to take off at 4:40pm and arrive at 8:40pm.
Just before boarding time, we were notified that the flight was cancelled because Hong Kong’s airport authority had scrapped all outbound and new inbound services.
