Coronavirus: Hong Kong to ease quarantine period for passenger aircrew to 3 days from May 1, provide more hotel rooms for isolation purposes
- Compulsory quarantine period for passenger flight crews to be shortened to three days at a designated hotel plus 11 days of medical surveillance
- Cargo crew to be exempt from quarantine and undergo 14 days of medical surveillance, electronic wristbands no longer required
Hong Kong will ease Covid-19 requirements for aircrew from Sunday, the government has said, with nine hotels designated for isolation of patients set to be turned into quarantine facilities to meet higher demand.
Transport authorities announced the relaxed measures on Friday, confirming an earlier report by the Post that the compulsory quarantine period for passenger flight crews would be reduced to three days at a designated hotel, down from the existing range of seven to 14 days. They must then complete 11 days of medical surveillance.
Cargo crew would be exempt from quarantine and must undergo 14 days of medical surveillance. Staff would also no longer be required to wear an electronic wristband during medical surveillance.
Cargo crew will also be subject to undergo a “test-and-hold” arrangement at the city’s airport, with all such flight personnel required to obtain a negative result from a nucleic acid test before they can leave.
During the first seven days of medical surveillance, all aircrew will be allowed to move freely around the city but must avoid mask-off activities in the public, as well as crowded places and mass gatherings.
They will also be required to undergo daily rapid antigen testing, keep a log of their activities and use the “Leave Home Safe” risk-exposure app.
The government warned that if aircrews failed to comply with the requirements, they would have their exemption status revoked.
From May 1, all aircrew deployed by local airlines to operate flights in and out of Hong Kong must be inoculated with three doses of a Covid-19 vaccine.
“The adjustments will provide Hong Kong’s aviation, trade and logistics industries, particularly air cargo operations between Hong Kong and the rest of the world, with much-needed survival space,” a spokesman from the Transport and Housing Bureau said.
The remarks from the bureau came as Hong Kong’s airport reported that the city had regained its reputation from 2021 as the world’s busiest cargo hub in terms of throughput.
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Gary Lau Ho-yin, chairman of the Hong Kong Association of Freight Forwarding and Logistics, said the move would help boost the use of air cargo, with the city currently relying on cross-border truck drivers to transport goods.
“The passenger flights and cargo freighters should be able to resume their schedules and increase the capacity needed to solve the problem of space shortage,” he said.
In a related development, the government said 4,000 rooms at nine more hotels would be redesignated from community isolation facilities to quarantine hotels, increasing the number of such premises to 55 and offering a total of 16,500 rooms.
Authorities said the move would help meet the potential demand for rooms by travellers, as the city was set to reopen to foreigners on May 1, ending a more than two-year-long entry ban. Arrivals will still be required to undergo seven days of mandatory quarantine at a government-approved hotel.
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Cathay Pacific Airways welcomed the eased requirements, saying it would resume more passenger and cargo flights.
A spokeswoman for Hong Kong’s flagship carrier said the airline had implemented stringent health procedures for the return of crews to Hong Kong and during overseas layovers
The procedures include requiring aircrews to isolate in their hotel rooms, giving employees one-time key card access and the use of dedicated point-to-point transport for travelling to and from the airport.
She added that aircrew in Hong Kong needed to comply with requirements set by local authorities, such as regular testing, logging their activities and use of the “Leave Home Safe” app.
The city’s fifth wave of infections waned further on Friday, with 336 confirmed cases and 11 related deaths. This brought the tally to over 1.2 million people with 9,298 related fatalities.
Additional reporting by Laura Westbrook
