Reuters
Hundreds of seats on two special flights intended to bring stranded Hongkongers home from Britain after the end of a coronavirus travel ban were snapped up in two hours on Thursday, in a process marred by a crashed booking site, phone calls that went unanswered, and what some called a “Hunger Games -style dogfight” for tickets.
Some people the Post spoke to described trying simultaneously on as many as six computers, waiting more than an hour at the end of a service helpline, and texting each other in a WhatsApp group over their shared misery and desperation.
On March 29, Hong Kong authorities announced the flight ban, imposed in December after the emergence of a Covid-19 mutant strain in Britain, would be lifted and Hongkongers could come home on two designated Cathay Pacific flights on April 21 and 28. About 600 tickets were offered for sale, but not all seats on both flights were made available.
Hongkongers stranded by coronavirus travel ban battle to get home from Britain in ‘Hunger Games-style’ fight for flights
Website crashes, hour-long waits on the phone, and multiple tales of misery mar booking process for Cathay Pacific services
Hundreds of Hongkongers bid for seats as spaces on planes sell out in two hours
Direct News Source
Government announces arrangements for designated flights from United Kingdom to Hong Kong and quarantine arrangements for arrivals from low-risk places
The Government announced today (April 1) the arrangements for designated flights from the United Kingdom (UK) to Hong Kong and the latest quarantine arrangements for arrivals from overseas low-risk specified places.
Due to the severe global epidemic situation of COVID-19, and to guard against the importation of new virus variants, the Government has put in place since late December last year the measure under the Prevention and Control of Disease (Regulation of Cross-boundary Conveyances and Travellers) Regulation (Cap. 599H) to restrict persons who had stayed in extremely high-risk Group A specified places from boarding flights for Hong Kong. In view of the decline of confirmed cases in the UK, where the majority of the affected Hong Kong residents are situated, as we