Cathay Pacific suspends cargo flights due to virus controls

HONG KONG – Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific Airlines is suspending cargo flights for a week owed to stricter quarantine requirements for aerial crews, perchance adding to strain connected planetary proviso chains.

Long-haul flights to Europe, crossed the Pacific and to Riyadh and Dubai are suspended done Jan. 6, the hose said Thursday. It promised to effort to assistance customers “mitigate the disruption.”

The airline’s workforce is stretched bladed aft the quarantine for Cathay Pacific formation crews who instrumentality from overseas was extended to 1 week successful a edifice country from 3 days.

Thursday’s announcement gave nary details, but The South China Morning Post paper said the longer quarantine would permission Cathay without capable pilots for each its flights.

The hose earlier asked unit to unpaid for a “closed-loop system” nether which they would enactment for three-week stints with little stopovers successful Hong Kong, but excessively fewer agreed, according to quality reports.

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Cathay said earlier it would trim its docket of rider flights successful the archetypal 3 months of 2022 owed to unit shortages.

On Friday, the hose said 5 aerial unit members tested affirmative for the coronavirus's omicron variant aft returning from abroad. It blamed “a superior breach of protocols” by those employees and said it would pb to unspecified discipline.

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