Hong Kong airport cuts flights from Tuesday due to super typhoon

All flights will be halted from 6 p.m. local time on Sept. 23 through 6 a.m. on Sept. 25 as Super Typhoon Ragasa bears down, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be identified discussing confidential information.

Wing Yeung, director of service delivery at Airport Authority Hong Kong, said during a briefing Monday that while the airport will remain open, there will be a large reduction in the number of flights. Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd., the city’s flagship carrier, said more than 500 flights will be canceled due to the inclement weather and they will gradually resume during Thursday daytime.

The Airport Authority Hong Kong said in a statement earlier on Monday that it has “commenced preparations for the typhoon, covering areas such as apron safety, flight operations, passenger care, ground transportation services between the airport and the city and staff rest areas.”

The Civil Aviation Department referred requests for comment to the airport authority.

Hong Kong was last battered by a super typhoon in September 2023, when Saola, classed as one of Hong Kong’s strongest-ever storms, halted flight operations for all airlines for 20 hours. In July, storm Wipha forced most airport services to pause for 13 hours.

The city’s airport shutdown underscores the risks Ragasa poses to Hong Kong’s densely-packed 7.5 million residents and its economy. The storm has already intensified into a super typhoon, packing sustained winds of 143 miles (230 kilometers) per hour near its core, equivalent to a Category 4 hurricane, according to the Hong Kong Observatory.

On average, the airport handles 1,100 flights and 190,000 passengers a day, serving 58 million travelers in the 12 months through August. Cathay, whose share of flights in and out of Hong Kong International Airport is 45%, faces an outsized impact.

Cathay said in a message on its website that it is waiving ticket change fees so travelers can rearrange trips more easily. Other local airlines have also waived penalties for travel between Sept. 23 and 25.

By limiting flights, officials are aiming to avoid a repeat of Typhoon Koinu in October 2023, when more than 10,000 travelers were stranded overnight after that storm caught authorities off guard. Airlines are currently planning to reschedule long-haul flights to mitigate disruptions, while short-haul services leaving Tuesday may not return immediately, the people familiar said. 

Aircraft not in use will be flown out of Hong Kong to avoid damage from debris. A limited number of cargo flights could resume late Wednesday, though no decision has been finalized, the people added. 

Ragasa—a Filipino word for rapid or fast motion—was located in the Luzon Strait roughly 1,100 kilometers southeast of Hong Kong as of Monday morning. Government work and classes in metropolitan Manila and in nearly 30 provinces across the Philippines were suspended on Monday due to forecasts of heavy rain.

Its current trajectory puts it on course to swipe Hong Kong, and make landfall sometime Wednesday over Guangdong province, the observatory says.