Protestors again forced many passenger flights from Hong Kong to be cancelled today after effectively shutting down the main terminal yesterday, but freighter operations of DHL, FedEx, UPS and major commercial airlines are so far largely unaffected by the escalating situation.
Hong Kong International Airport cancelled all passenger flights yesterday after thousands of anti-government demonstrators occupied the main terminal, preventing airlines from checking in passengers. This followed smaller protests inside the airport over the previous few days.
Today, demonstrators flooded back into the terminal after the airport re-opened in the morning, first delaying flights and then forcing all flights to be cancelled once again. The airport authority announced late afternoon local time: “Terminal operations at Hong Kong International Airport have been seriously disrupted, and all check-in processes have now been suspended. All passengers are advised to leave the terminal buildings as soon as possible.”
While the cancellations will have had a major impact on cargo flown bellyhold on passenger planes, freighter operations at Hong Kong International Airport, which is home to major facilities of DHL Express, FedEx Express and UPS, appear to have continued largely unaffected over the last two days.
According to the airport’s online flight schedule section, there were only a handful of freighter flight cancellations on Monday (August 12). Services operating normally yesterday included Aerologic flights for DHL Express to Cincinnati and Leipzig, UPS flights to Louisville and Cologne, and FedEx services to Memphis and New York.
Today, there were three freighter cancellations (at the time of writing), including a UPS evening departure to Anchorage/Ontario. All other cargo flights departed (or were scheduled to depart) normally, including Aerologic flights to Leipzig, FedEx services to Liege, Memphis and Paris/New York, and UPS flights to Cologne/Philadelphia and to Louisville.
Cathay Pacific said its freighter operation and schedule “remains unaffected” by the protests. Hundreds of passenger flights from Hong Kong were already cancelled last week (August 5) due to the protests.
Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA) is one of the world’s busiest airports, handling nearly 75 million passengers and more than 5 million tonnes of cargo in 2018.
DHL Express is currently investing a €335 million in a 50% capacity expansion of its Central Asia Hub at the airport, while earlier this year UPS deployed a larger capacity B747-8 freighter between Hong Kong and Cologne.
