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Coronavirus pandemic
Hong Kong

Hong Kong third wave: airline body objects to testing aircrew for Covid-19 as it predicts industry will not recover until 2024

  • New rules make it compulsory for pilots and cabin crew to have negative result before they can fly to Hong Kong
  • International Air Transport Association does not support move but evidence suggests latest surge came from imported cases

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The body representing the global airline industry has warned a recovery in travel to pre-coronavirus levels is not likely to happen until 2024, and is increasingly anxious to see border restrictions and quarantine measures eased.

But while blaming poor virus containment and weaker consumer confidence for the delay in recovery from its previous 2023 estimate, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) said pilots and cabin crew should not be tested for Covid-19 as a prerequisite for working.

New measures introduced by the Hong Kong government, which took effect on Wednesday, require aircrew to take a virus test before they fly and have proof of a negative result.

But the IATA insisted aircrew were not a risk as they tend to be “isolated from the general population” and as such it did not support “general testing of crew as a prerequisite”.

01:38

Coronavirus: US domestic flight reportedly ignores social-distancing rules

Coronavirus: US domestic flight reportedly ignores social-distancing rules
However, a strain of the virus found in local patients was discovered to be similar to one collected from a pilot arriving from Kazakhstan who stayed at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Causeway Bay, and a FedEx pilot from the US tested positive for Covid-19, but not before he took a walk around the city and ate in a local restaurant.
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