What makes you think it isn’t? The ‘deal’ you hung your hopes on was never more than a stay of execution to keep planes flying in the short term. The group has been given sufficient time to get their
into a pile so HKSAR immigration policy can return to normal.
Between renewal rejections, returning based-pilot rejections and resignations of pilots unwilling to stay for POS18 in return for at-will employment, they’re going to be scrambling for all the new entries they can find.