Hong Kong bans KLM flights from Amsterdam, scoot from Singapore

One of the last air links between two key Asian financial hubs has been severed, with Hong Kong banning Singapore Airlines Ltd.’s budget carrier Scoot from flying to the city for two weeks after passengers tested positive for Covid on arrival.

KLM Royal Dutch Airlines services from Amsterdam are also prohibited from Feb. 21 to March 6, Hong Kong’s Department of Health said in a statement Monday evening. The ban was imposed after a passenger on a Feb. 18 flight tested positive on arrival in Hong Kong, while two others failed to comply with travel requirements. 

Scoot confirmed its daily TR980 flight from Singapore to Hong Kong has been suspended. The Hong Kong government said four Scoot passengers tested positive within the seven-day period of Feb. 13 to 19.

A Feb. 22 service by Cathay Pacific Ltd.’s HK Express unit is now the sole flight from Singapore to Hong Kong remaining this month. The route was one of the busiest in the world before the pandemic hit.    

Singapore Airlines was on Feb. 16 blocked for two weeks from flying to Hong Kong, which has become increasingly cut off as it tries to gain control of its worst outbreak since the pandemic began. More than 7,500 new cases were reported Monday and the government is considering tighter social-distancing measures.

Cathay operated one flight to and from Singapore in February and has just one next month, on March 19, its website showed. That’s in stark contrast to the 252 monthly flights scheduled pre-pandemic, according to previously published timetables.

Air travel in and out of Hong Kong continues to be challenging. Hong Kong has banned flights from nine countries including the U.K. and U.S. as well as transit travel from everywhere except Taiwan and mainland China. Most people who manage to get into the city face two weeks mandatory hotel quarantine.