Hong Kong Quarantine Pushes Cathay Pilots To 'breaking Point'

Hong Kong, Dec 2 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 2nd Dec, 2021 ) :Cathay Pacific has been hit by a wave of pilot resignations in recent weeks as resentment over Hong Kong's strict quarantine regime boils over and crew scramble for emerging opportunities overseas.

The departures come as Hong Kong ties itself to Beijing's closed-border zero-Covid strategy -- a move that has kept the city coronavirus-free but internationally isolated.

Hong Kong's leaders say normalising travel with China must come before the rest of the world, a strategy that has caused growing alarm within multinationals in a finance hub that dubs itself "Asia's World City".

AFP interviewed four Cathay pilots who requested anonymity. Each said they knew more than a dozen colleagues who had resigned in the last few weeks.

More were applying for jobs at rivals in places that have shifted to a strategy of learning to live with the virus, they added.

"Things are horrible, resignations are through the roof," one pilot, who has more than 20 years' flying experience and has applied to two rival airlines, told AFP.

"There are a lot of guys at their breaking point. It's actually amazing that we haven't had an accident yet." For much of the pandemic Hong Kong has restricted inbound travel with as much as three weeks mandatory quarantine.

Pilots have some exemptions but spend days, sometimes weeks, shuttling within plane-to-hotel bubbles to avoid triggering quarantine when they return.

The most extreme form of this is "closed loop" flights where crew choose to spend some five weeks in a bubble followed by two weeks at home.