Left luggage saga: Hong Kong aviation insiders say airlines have power to help passengers like they did with chief executive’s daughter
CY Leung’s office clarifies that he did not talk to Airport Authority officials, though he did speak with airline staff
Pressure is mounting for the Hong Kong government to reveal its full airport security protocol to stem public worries of a breach over the delivery of a piece of left-behind luggage to Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying’s daughter from a non-restricted to a closed-off area.
It came as Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying insisted yesterday he had not exerted pressure on airport staff to bypass security and deliver the luggage to his daughter Chung-yan, who was at a boarding gate at the time.
Leung said that if his daughter had wanted to invoke a special privilege “she would have called me or her mother an hour before the flight took off”. He added: “If I really wanted to intervene, I could have called the senior management from the airline or the security company. But we absolutely did not.”
He also said he only learned of the incident when he called Chung-yan, 23, to say goodbye before she boarded the Cathay Pacific flight to San Francisco on March 28. It was already past midnight and the flight was scheduled to leave at 12:30am.
Leung further denied accusations from Apple Daily that he asked airline staff to address him as “Chief Executive Leung”. He said he only told staff he was the “father of passenger Leung Chung-yan”.
But questions lingered as to who made the decision to deliver the item into the restricted zone.
