Hong Kong, one of the world's busiest cargo hubs, is "effectively off the map"  as an international aviation gateway as the city continues to pursue tough Covid restrictions including flight curbs and lengthy quarantines not just for passengers but also for aircrew.

Willie Walsh, director-general of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) said Hong Kong's zero-Covid policy — which mimics that of China — will drag Hong Kong's recovery and standing as a major aviation hub while noting his disappointment with continuing restrictions in the city while more countries are starting to reopen borders. 

"Hong Kong as an international hub airport has slipped. It's effectively off the map now and I think it's going to be difficult for Hong Kong to recover," Walsh told a recent press briefing.

"It's going to lag significantly behind the recovery that we're seeing elsewhere and has led to a tough time for all airlines operating there," he added.

While Hong Kong has lifted country-specific flight bans from nine countries from April 1 including the United States and the United Kingdom, it still continues to implement one of the world's longest quarantine periods —  although shortened from 14 to 7 days. 

The IATA chief maintained that this is not enough to restart recovery.

"We continue to hear feedback from airlines and customers that the fact that there is a quarantine period is just so discouraging, that people aren't going to travel in the current environment unless they really have to," Walsh said.

Aside from tough quarantine rules, the city of over 7 million people also bans airlines from flying into Hong Kong for a period of time should three or more passengers on the flight are to be found positive for Covid-19. 

Hong Kong has also yet to ease its tight aircrew restrictions it earlier announced to tame the outbreak of the Omicron variant in the financial hub.

These measures have severely impacted the city's home carrier, Cathay Pacific, which as of February reported that it operates only around 2% of its pre-Covid-19 passenger flight capacity. Its cargo capacity, however, is now a third of its pre-pandemic level.

"It's extremely difficult for airlines operating into and from Hong Kong. The restrictions there have been very severe and have led directly to the cancellation of a lot of services with airlines effectively finding it incredibly difficult if not impossible to operate there."

"So, Hong Kong is very much an outlier — disappointing to see the measures that have been put in place when you compare to what's happening in other parts of the world," Walsh added.

Despite this, Walsh remains optimistic that Hong Kong would further relax its travel curbs and border restrictions as much of Asia start reopening after two years of effectively undergoing various forms of lockdown.

"The Asia Pacific region continues to lag significantly behind other segments, given the ongoing border restrictions, although we are seeing some positive developments there. We're encouraged by what we're hearing from some governments as well," the IATA chief said of the region's overall performance.

"China continues to be an outlier in pursuing the zero COVID approach. But we would expect to see a number of countries starting to relax their restrictions as we go through the rest of this month," he added.

Nonetheless, the IATA chief maintained that it could be difficult for Hong Kong to regain its status as a major aviation hub again.

"You'd have to think that it can — but it's going to be a real challenge," Walsh said. "I think they've lost ground to a number of other hubs who will have taken significant advantage of the problems in Hong Kong."

"So it's always going to be an important market but ... considering Hong Kong as a hub option I think has certainly slipped down the list significantly as a result of what’s happened there in the last two years."

Hong Kong defends tough Covid measures 

Following the comments from the IATA chief, Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam defended the city's anti-pandemic measures while maintaining that Hong Kong "no doubt" remains an important aviation gateway.

"There is no doubt that Hong Kong is a very important aviation hub," Lam told a press briefing responding to the statement made by Walsh.

She also noted development plans in place to further boost the major aviation hub status of Hong Kong — as part of the "14th Five-Year Plan" in anticipation of the completion of the Three-runway System of the Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA).

"The fifth wave of the COVID-19 epidemic has really hit us hard, and up till now we are still adhering to the policies of preventing the importation of infected cases and at the same time, through social distancing measures, to reduce or avoid the spread of local infections," Lam said.

"But that doesn't mean we will not continuously review the situation and make the necessary adjustments," the chief executive added.