Cathay Pacific Photo: cnsphoto

Cathay Pacific on Tuesday announced that it will restart a weekly passenger flight service between Guangzhou and Hong Kong from June 20. After the flight resumption, Cathay Pacific's mainland routes will be restored to seven routes, and the cities cover Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Xiamen, Hangzhou and Fuzhou.

As more crew members are vaccinated against the pandemic, and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government has relaxed the mandatory quarantine requirements for fully vaccinated crew members. The carrier also announced that it will in June restart multiple routes including flights to Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Brisbane, San Francisco and Vancouver.

The value of the travel market in Hong Kong has dropped for years, causing not only the poor performance of local carriers. 

Cathay Pacific continued to significantly reduce its capacity in April due to weak demand, as the global COVID-19 pandemic has continued, Hong Kong and many markets have implemented travel restrictions and quarantine measures.

Cathay Pacific said it carried 22,404 passengers in April, an increase of 63.2 percent from the same month in 2020, but a decrease of 99.3percent from pre-pandemic levels in April 2019.

In the first four months of 2021, the number of passengers carried by the airline dropped by 97.9 percent compared to the same period last year.

The Airport Authority of Hong Kong announced that Hong Kong International Airport's (HKIA) handled 58,000 passengers and 10,620 flights in March, marking year-on-year decreases of 89.9 percent and 12.5 percent, respectively, although cargo throughput saw a year-on-year increase of 4.9 percent. 

Secretary for Transport and Housing Frank Chan Fan predicted that the airport's passenger throughput will recover to pre-pandemic levels in three to four years after an almost 90 percent drop, according to chinanews.com on Wednesday. 

Hong Kong's air traffic has been greatly affected by the new outbreak there. Data showed that HKIA's annual passenger volume and annual aircraft movements last year were 8.8 million and 160,665, respectively, down 87.7 percent and 61.7 percent year-on-year. Although the annual cargo volume remained stable, it also recorded 7.1 percent fell to 4.5 million tons.

Hong Kong's Center for Health Protection reported one imported case of COVID-19 on Wednesday.

Hong Kong launched a COVID-19 vaccination drive on February 26 and more than 2.43 million doses have been administered so far. Some 1.39 million people or about 21 percent of its population have taken at least one shot of the vaccine, including more than 1.03 million people who are now fully vaccinated.