Hong Kong ends flight bans that caused travel chaos

Hong Kong has suspended a system that banned airline routes which brought infected passengers to the city, the latest in a series of moves easing onerous travel curbs that damaged its reputation as a financial hub.

Starting Thursday, the so-called circuit breaker mechanism will end until further notice, the government said in a statement.

The city will pivot to a stronger testing regimen, which it says is more effective at catching imported cases than flight bans.

The new measure is driven by the peak season for students studying overseas returning to Hong Kong, and will help reduce the impact on travel, the government said in a statement. It will stop transmission into the community in a more precise and effective manner to achieve “the most outbreak prevention goals with the least social cost,” it said.

The circuit breaker system suspended flights that had at least five passengers, or at least 5% of the total number of passengers on board, testing positive on arrival. The bans, which used to be two weeks long, and currently last for five days at a time, were one of the most criticized of Hong Kong’s curbs.

The controversial policy saw about 100 flight routes banned this year, sparking chaos for travelers who also have to line up quarantine hotel rooms and pre-flight tests to get into the city.

It’s the first substantial shift to Hong Kong’s policies since John Lee was sworn in as chief executive on July 1 and comes as the system had been put under increasing strain as the peak summer travel season got underway.

Hong Kong will now require arrivals to take an additional PCR test on the third day, when they are quarantined in designated quarantine hotels. Including the pre-departure test, travelers will need to take six PCR tests across 14 days.

For now, the government is keeping the seven-day hotel quarantine requirement in place, though anticipation is growing that the length of confinement may also be trimmed.

Bloomberg News reported that the government is considering cutting the time inbound travelers must stay isolated in hotel rooms to five days, followed by two days at home.

While the change is a step in the right direction, the next focus should be to shorten quarantine time or allow some period of home isolation, said Jin Dong-yan, a virologist at the University of Hong Kong.

“Hong Kong can’t be like China because we are the gateway to the outside world. If we are closed, our economy and everything will be different,” he said.

Security-minded Lee has inherited the problem that plagued former Chief Executive Carrie Lam’s final years in office: how to satisfy the city’s business community’s desire to open international borders with Beijing’s demand to limit virus cases in line with its strict Covid Zero policy – a key requirement to resume quarantine-free travel with the mainland.

Lee has said his administration was working with Chinese officials to introduce quarantine-free travel for people coming from Hong Kong to the mainland. Local media previously reported that Lee was considering proposing a closed-loop system to allow quarantine-free travel for business people.

“It is a very challenging and opposing position,” said Jin, referring to Lee’s goals of reopening to both mainland China and the rest of the world.