And so it begins...
 

The genie is now out of the bottle. Cases will double every two days. Get your third dose before the queues are too long.

How about start just treating it like a form of the cold virus that it really is? Maybe that might start returning some sanity to the debate.

Freighter crew now have New Year off. Long haul freighters suspended for seven days. Quarantine increased to seven days too.
https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/...acific-aircrew

Something so infectious you can delay the application of quarantines by 36h :D

The good news is that it is omicron, the mildest form of covid so far. Hopefully, if it does set off a massive wave of infections, it will effectively ‘vaccinate’ the general population in Hong Kong and will set the stage for opening up it up to the rest of the world.
If they manage to contain it somehow, it would not be good news for aviation and cargo supply to Hong Kong.

Won’t be long now until the last wheel comes off. Good luck to everyone finding a new job, albeit non aviation related. This Soap Opera has been a good one!

If only we had some bases to circumvent the new 7 day quarantine rule.

LA is just that… this is the beginning of the end if nothing changes. We will go the way of UO. Flights limited to training captains if there are any left.

yes, but that is not how the government and health lunatics in HK think or will think about how to deal from now on, you know nothing they implement is science based .

I’d like to see them trying to hospitalise every person with covid in a proper outbreak, like they are doing now, whether symptomatic or not.

People will be dying, not from omicron, but from lack of hospital beds.

I want to see the system break, I’ve had enough.

Just need to put a few bunk beds in at AWE. Double the capacity straight away. The farce that is the government is going to get this severely wrong either way.

Still they have a limited amount of nurses and doctors, but I take your point.

Plus yet more messages of HOPE from our leadership. Hope is not a strategy. It's not even a lousy strategy.

It will be glorious when the Chinese are forced to abandon their stupid covid 0 policy. Unfortunately most locals support all the over the top quarantine and rules and wearing masks outdoors... I never really took much notice of cultural differences between the Chinese and gwei los until covid hit

And now it’s Iron Fairies ffs.
https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/...ected-mark-end

Many of the guys on 3 days home quarantine also held Christmas Parties with photos on Facebook. You never had to look far for someone breaching the rules. Guys were leaving the hotels outport since the beginning.
I'm glad it's finally broken the borders. HK needs this to even look like moving forward. It'll scare locals into vaccines.

The news just said, CX chairman and CEO both got summoned by Carrie Lam and were both heavily condemned by the CE.... This is exactly the same move that Chairman Xi pulled on Jack Ma and many other billionaires in China, if the big man is unhappy, someone will be reprimanded... And given shxt rolls downhill, guess what's going to happen next... It will be Healy/Augustus -> Kempis -> respective CPs -> anyone else who has stripes on their shoulders... I said that before, the CE only cares about the border with the motherland, anyone who even remotely affect her plan to reconnect with the motherland will be punished...

The Covid 0 strategy will NOT change, you guys seriously need to get someone to translate some Chinese news to you. There are words coming out of Xian, which has been in lockdown for 8-9 days now, that people only have enough food to have 1 meal per day as they are completely locked in their home with groceries delivered by the authorities. Motherland does not care about vaccines, it cares about COVID 0. Stop dreaming that HK can move forward, HK is a baby in a pram, it wouldn't move unless the mother pushes it

Let’s hope the Jelly Fish and kie disappears like those book sellers in Causeway Bay.

Xinjiang “training camps” are looking for some extra hands :}

CE summons Cathay bosses over rule-breaching staff
https://news.rthk.hk/rthk/en/compone...6-20211231.htm

To be honest, re-opening of bases is the only way forward for Cathay to operate the airline efficiency for the foreseeable future.

It is a 180 from the policy to close them only a few months ago, but they have to be flexible and act as the battlefield changes.

It solves the problem of pilots bringing COVID in as you can isolate them on their layover, solves the mental health issue for pilots and avoids the unpredictable nature of the rules.

They need to operate the airline outside - in rather than the reverse.

I know they are working on it, but it is very slow, a day late and a dollar short.

and all of the very senior base Pilots they screwed?

Does that mean I get my job back?

Not if you signed for any type of enhanced redundancy package unfortunately.

I suspect any talk of reopening the bases is pure conjecture. They’ve spent a decade trying to get rid of them and bring everyone back under a POS policy, this pandemic presented a perfect opportunity so why would they roll that all back now?

My best guess is they will see how many volunteers they get for these closed loops, then they’ll turn to temporary bases, which can I add are a carrot for signing up for closed loops, and then when this virus madness ends it’ll be back to the pineapple/jackfruit treatment.

I hope I am wrong, as opening bases will be a great result for many at CX. However, judging by the way they dealt with the bases over the past year, would anyone be confident that they won’t just repeat the same tactic again.

Mission accomplished

Let's hope these cases spread like wildfire in HK. Good riddance to the old unvaccinated morons. Unfortunately it will change nothing about their BS zero covid strategy.

A 180 degree turn to open bases since they closed them would be a 360 degree turn from the bases review of 2 years ago that recommended they remain open. The bonus of having an ever changing policy is management can always retrospectively claim they were right by selectively using a convenient past position.

what does that mean? It was the cabin crews not pilots that were tested positive?

Thinking outside the box here: can’t they lease the freighters to AHK including the crews? They already have the 747 on their AOC and operate bases outside HKG?

Please Saul, stop making sense. Cannot.

SeaEggs, a final correction to the article that Kaboy linked has the statement, "An earlier version of this story said the crew members involved were pilots. Cathay Pacific has since clarified that the aircrew involved were cabin crew."

So yes, it looks as though they are cabin crew. Puts a whole new perspective on the case. I wonder where the mis-information came from initially, and if is was deliberate?

Perhaps this article will help with a bit of perspective...

https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/p...tural-immunity

https://www.reuters.com/business/aer...es-2022-01-01/

CX media and spokes 'people' interchange pilot, cabin crew or aircrew to suit the key messaging.

In this case, the aircrew appear to be cabin crew. However, as they are most likely local cabin crew this would not suit the agenda of 'blame the expat pilots'. The use of 'aircrew' on this occassion feeds the illusion to the general population.

Good read there mngmt mole Spot on!

I consider the “aircrew” to have done HK a favour by importing Omicron. There has been plenty of time to prepare. Shame that Cathay is being made a scapegoat.

https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion...antine-failure

Aircrew around the world are watching on in disbelief as CX crew continue to volunteer for these unsustainable working practices whilst the government, general public and 'management' have turned their back on operating crew.

The only way this stops is if the crew body say enough is enough and those continuing to work under these dystopic practices stop dragging the rest of their colleagues and their families through another year of this nonsense.

Disgraceful.

Spot on.
Hit a paywall on the article, anyone care to post?

When Cathay Pacific emerged from a near-death pandemic experience more than a year ago, fortified against further damage to its business with a HK$30 billion (US$3.8 billion) government cash injection, few could have anticipated that it would now be in even more strife. It has suspended long-haul cargo flights – a revenue lifeline – for a week while it adjusts to tough new aircrew quarantine requirements. It has only itself to blame after failure to impose quarantine discipline on its staff. We all pay the price.

The city is now braced for a local outbreak of the highly contagious Omicron variant, for which responsibility has already been laid at the door of Cathay aircrew who broke isolation protocols. The breach has apparently resulted in the first local coronavirus cases in more than 80 days. The government has now extended a vaccine bubble to more places including restaurants, meaning patrons must have at least one jab before Lunar New Year.
Hong Kong consumers set to take hit from Cathay cargo flight suspension
1 Jan 2022
https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default...8&v=1640972548Pandemic rules have found Cathay and its aircrew wanting. Non-compliance has damaged the airline’s relations with the government. Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, rightly, summoned the airline’s chairman and chief executive to express her “grave concerns” after four aircrew violated home isolation rules. Such irresponsibility is to be condemned. The violations cannot be that uncommon. Cathay should have been more alert to the danger. Anti-virus “closed loop” crew assignments that keep them away from home for weeks, followed by quarantine, would test anyone’s forbearance. That is just one example of the rising collateral costs of a zero-tolerance policy towards the virus. Another is the damage to Cathay’s brand as one of the world’s top air-cargo operators, and to Hong Kong’s image as a cargo hub. Industry players say Hongkongers can expect to pay much more for fresh produce, daily necessities and electrical goods over coming weeks as shipping costs soar due to the suspension of long-haul cargo flights.

Vaccination remains the first line of defence. The February 1 deadline to get at least one jab before going to restaurants, cinemas and gyms appears to lack urgency, even if it allows for advance notice and for trades to adapt. “Before Lunar New Year” sounds flexible and we trust no opportunity will be lost to bring that forward.

The vexing question of why more people are seeking a booster jab than the first shot reflects the resistance that prevails among the unvaccinated, especially the over-80s. Measures that punish the most vulnerable have, wisely, been avoided so far. One government adviser has called for wet markets to be included in the extended vaccine bubble. It would be regrettable if that is what it takes to get people’s attention and boost the inoculation rate.

Meanwhile, just north of here is an indicator of where HKG may be heading.. https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/171958...on-punishment/

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Where I live (Manitoba Canada) we had 1494 new cases December 31st

1223 of those were people fully vaccinated

262 were not vaccinated

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