Cathay Pacific is taking extreme measures to cope with new rules that will require flight crew to quarantine in Hong Kong from Saturday, introducing a rotation policy that puts staff out of action for almost one month at a time after they have completed 21-day shifts.
Crew who volunteer to take part in the airline’s so-called closed loop plan must isolate at Cathay’s Headland Hotel whenever they return to Hong Kong during their 21-day duty cycle.
Once the three-week shift is over, they will need to self-isolate for 14 days in a hotel in Taikoo Shing on Hong Kong Island. Then they will get 14 days time off, bringing the full duty cycle to 49 days.
Cathay has said the requirement for crew to quarantine could add as much as HK$400 million ($52m) to its monthly cash burn, which is already as high as HK$1.5 billion due to an unprecedented slump in demand for air travel.
The new measures, which come after Hong Kong extended the mandatory quarantine period for people arriving in the city, are aimed at shoring up the border, even as new daily coronavirus cases ease to low double digits and authorities relax some social-distancing rules.
“As long as stringent quarantine measures continue to be in place in Hong Kong and elsewhere, the coming months will be extremely challenging,” Cathay’s chief customer and commercial officer Ronald Lam said in a statement.
Cathay flew just 30,410 passengers last month, an average of 981 a day. Passenger load factor was 13.3 per cent, a record low. The airline is particularly exposed to the pandemic as it has no home market to serve while international routes are largely off-limits.
Cathay’s shares have dropped 23 per cent over the past 12 months.
Under the new shift cycle, crew will need to take Covid-19 tests every time they arrive in Hong Kong, and they may be subjected to more when arriving in countries such as Australia, which also has strict border measures in place, a Cathay spokesperson wrote in an email to Bloomberg.
Enough staff have volunteered to take part in the programme, the spokesperson said, without disclosing numbers. They will undergo medical surveillance for seven days after the 14-day hotel quarantine period.
Pilots who don’t volunteer for the closed loop plan will likely mostly operate turnaround cargo flights within single flight duty periods.
RESULTS
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The candidates
Dr Ayham Ammora, scientist and business executive
Ali Azeem, business leader
Tony Booth, professor of education
Lord Browne, former BP chief executive
Dr Mohamed El-Erian, economist
Professor Wyn Evans, astrophysicist
Dr Mark Mann, scientist
Gina MIller, anti-Brexit campaigner
Lord Smith, former Cabinet minister
Sandi Toksvig, broadcaster
Quick%20facts
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SPEC SHEET
Display: 6.8" edge quad-HD dynamic Amoled 2X, Infinity-O, 3088 x 1440, 500ppi, HDR10 , 120Hz
Processor: 4nm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1/Exynos 2200, 8-core
Memory: 8/12GB RAM
Storage: 128/256/512GB/1TB
Platform: Android 12
Main camera: quad 12MP ultra-wide f/2.2, 108MP wide f/1.8, 10MP telephoto f/4.9, 10MP telephoto 2.4; Space Zoom up to 100x, auto HDR, expert RAW
Video: 8K@24fps, 4K@60fps, full-HD@60fps, HD@30fps, super slo-mo@960fps
Front camera: 40MP f/2.2
Battery: 5000mAh, fast wireless charging 2.0 Wireless PowerShare
Connectivity: 5G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.2, NFC
I/O: USB-C
SIM: single nano, or nano and SIM, nano and nano, eSIM/nano and nano
Colours: burgundy, green, phantom black, phantom white, graphite, sky blue, red
Price: Dh4,699 for 128GB, Dh5,099 for 256GB, Dh5,499 for 512GB; 1TB unavailable in the UAE
BUNDESLIGA FIXTURES
Saturday
Borussia Dortmund v Eintracht Frankfurt (5.30pm kick-off UAE)
Bayer Leverkusen v Schalke (5.30pm)
Wolfsburg v Cologne (5.30pm)
Mainz v Arminia Bielefeld (5.30pm)
Augsburg v Hoffenheim (5.30pm)
RB Leipzig v Bayern Munich (8.30pm)
Borussia Monchengladbach v Freiburg (10.30pm)
Sunday
VfB Stuttgart v Werder Bremen (5.30pm)
Union Berlin v Hertha Berlin (8pm)
BEACH SOCCER WORLD CUP
Group A
Paraguay
Japan
Switzerland
USA
Group B
Uruguay
Mexico
Italy
Tahiti
Group C
Belarus
UAE
Senegal
Russia
Group D
Brazil
Oman
Portugal
Nigeria
INFO
UAE cricketers abroad
Sid Jhurani is not the first cricketer from the UAE to go to the UK to try his luck.
Rameez Shahzad Played alongside Ben Stokes and Liam Plunkett in Durham while he was studying there. He also played club cricket as an overseas professional, but his time in the UK stunted his UAE career. The batsman went a decade without playing for the national team.
Yodhin Punja The seam bowler was named in the UAE’s extended World Cup squad in 2015 despite being just 15 at the time. He made his senior UAE debut aged 16, and subsequently took up a scholarship at Claremont High School in the south of England.
Dunki
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Sholto Byrnes on Myanmar politics
