“Hong Kong as an international hub airport has slipped. It is effectively off the map now and I think it is going be difficult for Hong Kong to recover,” he said.

Hong Kong residents return home as Covid travel curbs eased; 5,823 cases logged

While much of the world has opened up and resumed quarantine-free international travel, Hong Kong has retained some of the strictest travel rules adhering to its “dynamic zero-Covid” approach in line with mainland China.

Asked if Hong Kong would review its flight suspension mechanism, Lam said the bans were triggered because of a “very relaxed approach” in other countries leading to three or more positive cases among passengers on flights.

Lam questioned why a passenger would test positive 10 to 15 hours later upon arrival if they had to test negative as a pre-boarding requirement.

“We have to understand what has happened leading to these route-specific flight suspensions that we have to impose upon airlines under the current policy,” Lam said.

“We will continue to review and to make the necessary adjustments in the light of the Hong Kong epidemic situation.”

The Food and Health Bureau said in a statement to the Post earlier this week that the Department of Health’s current policy involved checking whether passengers who had tested positive on arrival and showed high CT values had recently recovered from Covid-19.

“If the positive case is a recently recovered person, that positive case will not count against the suspension criteria for the flight in question,” the statement said. All positive cases are transferred to a community isolation facility for quarantine.

Singapore Airlines, Emirates, Cathay Pacific Airways, Qatar Airways, Korean Air and Malaysia Airlines were all suspended for one week after triggering the city’s so-called circuit-breaker mechanism.

An airline can also be suspended if one or more passengers on the flight test positive for Covid-19 and fail to comply with rules regarding hotel quarantine bookings and pre-departure tests.

Lam said Hong Kong’s status as an international aviation hub was written into the 14th five-year plan, adding that the fifth wave of infections had hit the city hard but that she would “make the necessary adjustments” to pandemic policies when needed.

The city relaxed travel restrictions from April 1. A ban on nine countries was lifted and hotel quarantine for Hong Kong residents was halved from 14 to seven days.

Walsh said the reduction in the hotel quarantine period was not enough to prevent Hong Kong’s isolation from the rest of the world.

Cathay to increase flights as Hong Kong lawmaker urges more easing of curbs

Asked if the city could regain its status as a global aviation hub, Walsh said it would be a “real challenge” as a number of other travel centres had capitalised on the restrictions Hong Kong had imposed over the past two years.

“It’s always going to be an important market, but it’s not going to spring to mind with a lot of customers when they’re looking at how they’re travelling, unless they’re travelling to Hong Kong,” he said.

Independent aviation analyst Brendan Sobie agreed that the city had declined in status as an aviation hub, but said he did not believe the situation would be permanent.

“There is still time to get it back on the map and in the position it should be in, given its great geography and the strength of the Cathay brand,” he said.

Singapore was among aviation hubs that had become a key gateway for people arriving in Asia, Sobie said, with the city having joined other neighbouring countries in relaxing travel restrictions by fully reopening its borders to all vaccinated visitors on April 1.

But he added that aviation hubs in the Middle East had been well ahead of their counterparts in Asia, including Singapore.