Airlines Axe Flights Even As Japan Eases Entry Curbs

Japanese authorities have further revised rules for flights from Hong Kong, saying they can land at all of its international airports as long as they do not carry passengers who’ve been to mainland China in the previous seven days.

Earlier in the week, Japan said it would limit flights from Hong Kong, Macau and the mainland to four airports in Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya.

But in an about-turn, Tokyo announced on Thursday that flights from the SAR will also be permitted to land in Sapporo, Fukuoka and Okinawa, as long as none of their passengers had been on the mainland within seven days of their departure.

There will also be a cap on the number of Hong Kong flights allowed to land in Japan.

Airlines here, including Cathay Pacific, say they are rescheduling some of their flights to comply with the latest travel restrictions.

"As airlines are not allowed to increase flights beyond the number that they operated in the week of 23-29 December, Cathay Pacific will only be able to operate 65 flights per week in total... That represents a 20 percent reduction to our planned Japan schedule in January 2023," the flag carrier said in a statement.

It said it will operate a "reduced flight schedule" from Friday until further notice, cancelling all flights to Nagoya and Fukuoka.

While the airline will continue flying to Sapporo, those who have booked flights to the city must make a declaration that they had not recently been in the mainland.

For Cathay flights from Japan to Hong Kong, they will operate as planned from Friday to January 8.

But from January 9, all services from Nagoya will be cancelled, with flights from Sapporo also reduced from seven to five per week.

A number of return flights from Fukuoka, Tokyo Narita and Osaka will also be cancelled.

Separately, Hong Kong Express said it will cancel 41 flights from Hong Kong to Japan next month, and only operate 60 flights each week.

Meanwhile, the Hong Kong government called Tokyo’s revised policy "unreasonable".

"The HKSAR government will continue to request the Japanese authorities to rescind all discriminative restrictions on passenger flights departing from Hong Kong," officials said in a statement.