Source: https://news.rthk.hk/rthk/ch/component/ ... 190809.htm (Chinese link)
According to CAAC, as Cathay did not suspend pilot from his flying duty after them being charged with the crime of riot, and incident of passenger information being maliciously leaked, these events have constituted a severe risk on aviation safety, result in bad social impact, and increased the aviation security risk introduced from Hong Kong to mainland China.

Based on the zero-tolerance principle on security risk, to protect the order of air transport, protect the security of passenger, and prevent damage to third party in air, on ground or water, CAAC raised three point demand to Cathay Airlines in the security risk warning.

1. Starting from August 10 00:00, stop any staff who have participated or supported illegal protest and have violent behavior from flying flights to mainland China or execute any tasks related to air transportation activity that are related to mainland China.

2. Starting from August 11 00:00, send personal identity information of all crew on all flights that fly into or fly over mainland China to its corresponding operation approval certification authority for approval. Flights that are not approved will not be accepted by mainland China air control.

3. Before August 15 00:00, report to its corresponding operation approval certification authority on solution of how to increase its internal management, enhance flight safety and aviation security standard.

CAAC will monitor and handle the situation of Cathay's compliance on these rules according to law and regulation. CAAC have also ordered its central-southern district management to meet Cathay.

CAAC has just issued a stark warning to CX with a harshly-worded statement aired prime time on China's national broadcaster CCTV this evening Aug 9.

民航局向香港国泰航空发出重大航空安全风险警示

The statement says CX has been exposed to significant flight risks and threats over quite a few recent events in Hong Kong, eg, its flight crew who engaged in violent acts continuing to serve the company despite facing crime charges, malicious disclosure of travel information of pax flying with CX, thus heightening potential risks over aviational communication from Hong Kong to mainland China.

In accordance with the principle of zero-tolerance of safety hazards, CAAC has raised three requirements for CX in unequivocal terms:

1 Beginning 00:00 Aug 10, 2019, all those employees who joined and rooted for illegal protests and violent acts in HK, as well as those employees who got a record of radical acts, must be immediately suspended from serving any mainland-bound flights or any other transportation activities involving the mainland.

2 Beginning 00:00 Aug 11, 2019, all the personal identity information for flight/cabin crew on the airline's flights to the mainland AND on flights overflying the mainland must be submitted to relevant governmental agencies in the mainland for review and check, failure in which would result in mainland's rejection for concerning flights.

3 Before 00:00 Aug 15, 2019, CX must submit a package plan to relevant governmental agencies in the mainland with regard to its measures to boost internal management, flight safety and security.

CAAC adds that it will take further action accordingly depending on how CX acts upon the above requirements.

Intriguing to note the effectiveness of the CAAC warning of this rare kind.

Hong Kong as we know it is coming to an end very, very quickly.

I'm sure that the pilot will be heart broken to be barred from the mainland.

"I can't find the right word" to say...as usual.

As for ramification:
Point 1, well, CX/KA crew doesn't exactly like working on mainland routes anyway
Point 2 would be the greater concern. There's the privacy ramification (And they STILL wonder why HKers are so against the extradition treaty) along with random denial of overflight (B/c, well, it's mainland China, law enforcement are as arbitrary as it gets). The European flights all overfly mainland airspace, as does a fair amount of N. American flights especially coming from US (via polar route). Now, CX can always go around mainland airspace, at the expense of using more fuels. Flight southward (i.e. Australia/SE Asia/India plus Middle East) are not really affected, as are flights to Japan/South Korea/Taiwan.
Point 3, what is CAAC going to do? Ban CX from overflying China?

At the end, it's all politics. It'll be interesting to see CX's response. CX Union are certainly going to go on full strike if management decided to give in to CAAC at the expense of their employee, especially if it's something like a list of employees that went on strike on the 5th, or worse, layoff people b/c of their political beliefs (Yeah, that's going to REALLY go well).

How much longer till other countries issue warnings about traveling to Hong Kong?

PRC: "Hong Kong, you're ours"

HK: "Ah, I see...so we have free reign around the PRC in exchange, right?"

PRC: "Well, no..."

Shouldn’t this be moved to non aviation so it won’t be locked due to political comments

Please refrain from making political commentary.

Lets stick to the aviation angle.

Delta28L wrote:

How much longer till other countries issue warnings about traveling to Hong Kong?

I expected that warning after the safety warning for travelling to China

zakuivcustom wrote:

As for ramification:
Point 1, well, CX/KA crew doesn't exactly like working on mainland routes anyway
Point 2 would be the greater concern. There's the privacy ramification (And they STILL wonder why HKers are so against the extradition treaty) along with random denial of overflight (B/c, well, it's mainland China, law enforcement are as arbitrary as it gets). The European flights all overfly mainland airspace, as does a fair amount of N. American flights especially coming from US (via polar route). Now, CX can always go around mainland airspace, at the expense of using more fuels. Flight southward (i.e. Australia/SE Asia/India plus Middle East) are not really affected, as are flights to Japan/South Korea/Taiwan.
Point 3, what is CAAC going to do? Ban CX from overflying China?

Quite possibly, the mainland has all the power here and, IMHO, will not hesitate to, effectively, ground CX if that is required.

China as with any nation is certainly within its rights to bar specific crew members it deems a risk. The U.S does the same via its visa process with all types of random past events barring people.

For broader CX yes it will likely be punished, but that should not be a shock either as if you want to do business with China you play with their rules and certainly dont get yourself involved in events that bring negative light.

janders wrote:

Please refrain from making political commentary.

Lets stick to the aviation angle.

The aviation angle is that CAAC are not above making politically motivated decisions in the name of "safety".


Do you hear that Donald and Denis?

GCT64 wrote:

Quite possibly, the mainland has all the power here and, IMHO, will not hesitate to, effectively, ground CX if that is required.

What power? As long as CX doesn't fly in mainland airspace, CAAC can't control anything. HK Aviation Authority is separated entity anyway (Now, whether CAAC will "pressure" HKAA to do something is another story).

Plus what does grounding CX do anyway other than hurting HK economy by mainland China's direct action? HK People are not as stupid as the inept gov't think they are. Good luck spinning this and blame the protesters for grounding CX also.

The U.S (along with 20 other nations as of yesterday) have already issued travel warnings for HK.


Exercise increased caution in Hong Kong due to civil unrest.

Since June 2019, several large scale and smaller political demonstrations have taken place in various areas of Hong Kong. Most have been peaceful, but some have turned confrontational or resulted in violent clashes. The protests and confrontations have spilled over into neighborhoods other than those where the police have permitted marches or rallies. These demonstrations, which can take place with little or no notice, are likely to continue.

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel ... isory.html

=

I am afraid these violent actions will ultimately cause irreversible damage to the territory as it harms trade and commerce which will simply go somewhere else.

Does this only affect mainline Cathay or it also affects Cathay Dragon as well? IIRC the latter does most of the mainland flying...

I notice that some of our frequent CX crew member posters have gone radio silent in the last couple of weeks. Wonder if the fear of being connected to this PRC/HKG debacle has struck a chord?

At my airline crews are already asking to avoid HKG layovers.

We have had security warnings for several months now and even had to change crew hotels from Hong Kong island to Kowloon due to the rioting.

Shame but it seems the image of HK is fast being destroyed.

HK was better off in British hands. I was there for the ceremony in 97. I will say the flight home on Cathay was one of the best I ever had. Shame how politics can ruin a really great airline.

I haven’t been following all this has HKG been affected at all by this? Do you think that The Hong Kong aviation authorities reciprocate and ban Chinese carriers of CAAC bans Cathay?

A good friend of mine is part of the corporate aviation scene in HKG. He says so far no problems, other that the protesters are frequently in front of their offices and it makes it very hard if not impossible for workers to get to their offices. Hopefully cooler heads will prevail on both side before its to late.

Just giving people some background, the whole "security warning" probably originate from this:
https://www.facebook.com/cathaypacificH ... 8091211220

Basically, there was a CX pilot that was arrested last month during one of the protest (The one in Sheung Wan on 7/27), follow by baseless claim that the CX pilot is somehow involved in the leaking of police officer's information (Which is the work of some netizens).

There's also another legislator in LegCo (Jeremy Tam Man-ho) that is a CX pilot and had appeared in many protests also. Those two combined likely triggered the CAAC to target CX.

Ultimately, it's PRC and they just keep showing why they cannot be trust as somebody that "rise peacefully".

airtrantpa wrote:

I haven’t been following all this has HKG been affected at all by this? Do you think that The Hong Kong aviation authorities reciprocate and ban Chinese carriers of CAAC bans Cathay?

VERY doubtful. The whole HK gov't is full of pro-PRC officials/cronies (Unlike Taiwan).

The big no-no the CX staff did was to publish passenger info online. From:

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politic ... g-protests

"The airline also came under attack on mainland social media after a staff member leaked information online about the flight details of a group of Hong Kong police officers."

This is unacceptable anywhere in the world and would get you fired or prosecuted in most places. It was probably the main excuse to take action as this is really an airline problem and can not be explained away as a personal opinion by their staff.

BravoOne wrote:

I notice that some of our frequent CX crew member posters have gone radio silent in the last couple of weeks. Wonder if the fear of being connected to this PRC/HKG debacle has struck a chord?

Freedom of speech is one of the first casualties. I would not be surprised if this was the case.

Two cantons one nation on the surface was working... what happened here?

Our fullest regards for the people of non mainland Cathay (Pacific) at this time, as the long history of prosperity in this region of the world is tilted on its Axis.

There will never be anything like the beauty of an L1011 or a traditional but dated livery Trident over Hong Kong.

Sorry if this seems kinda silly, but is this actually true or is it China just being China? Either way it's a shame politics ruins everything these days...

More Chinese historical aviation



https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Y-10
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Hong_Kong

This is really serious for Cathay. Of course its really serious for the entire of HKG but its its aviation ill stick to cathay.
Most of their North America flights go over mainland china. Most of their European routes do too. This policy means the
Chinese government can randomly pick an individual staff member who may have for example, posted something critical on
Facebook or was in some kind of social media picture, and ban an entire aircraft from entering their airspace.

Here's the issue. It's going to be next to impossible to disprove and have any recourse.
So that gives cathay 2 options.
1 - reroute to the old days where they didn't overfly china to get to Siberia on the way to Europe.
this of course means a southern routing and depending on aircraft a possible fuel stop but definitely
hrs extra of fuel burn. And there goes their competitive advantage, they're already dealing with
low margins.

2 - Risk it. The Chinese government will almost certainly turn aircraft back, they're within their rights to do
so. One wrong Facebook post in the last 10 years is all they'll need. This could be a bigger game of chicken,
and probably one CX can not afford to take on. There's two airlines hubs close buy that can easily take over.
PEK will let the europeans come in larger volumes, Ditto for the ME3. I'm not optimistic. Lets hope some cool
heads reach a compromise.

I love Cathay and I love HKG lets just hope this doesn't get any futher out of hand.

Lufthansa wrote:

This is really serious for Cathay. Of course its really serious for the entire of HKG but its its aviation ill stick to cathay.
Most of their North America flights go over mainland china. Most of their European routes do too. This policy means the
Chinese government can randomly pick an individual staff member who may have for example, posted something critical on
Facebook or was in some kind of social media picture, and ban an entire aircraft from entering their airspace.

Here's the issue. It's going to be next to impossible to disprove and have any recourse.
So that gives cathay 2 options.
1 - reroute to the old days where they didn't overfly china to get to Siberia on the way to Europe.
this of course means a southern routing and depending on aircraft a possible fuel stop but definitely
hrs extra of fuel burn. And there goes their competitive advantage, they're already dealing with
low margins.

2 - Risk it. The Chinese government will almost certainly turn aircraft back, they're within their rights to do
so. One wrong Facebook post in the last 10 years is all they'll need. This could be a bigger game of chicken,
and probably one CX can not afford to take on. There's two airlines hubs close buy that can easily take over.
PEK will let the europeans come in larger volumes, Ditto for the ME3. I'm not optimistic. Lets hope some cool
heads reach a compromise.

I love Cathay and I love HKG lets just hope this doesn't get any futher out of hand.

Yes, Hong Kong is an aviation transportation crossroads. It would not be very ENVIRONMENTALLY GREEN of certain countries to force airlines to avoid overflying said countries territory in the interest of crew and passenger safety.

I wonder which Cathay cantons around Hong Kong encourage and are most aviation environmentally green in this day and age.

Of course its not green. And its probably not economically viable or likely viable either. Just ask SAA would happened
when it wasn't allowed to overfly continental Africa on the way to Europe? They had to buy the
747-sp to go up the coast of Africa and refuel in Lisbon taking several hrs longer than BA took to London. They had a government determined to
make sure they stayed in business no matter what despite the cost disadvantages for national security reasons.
CX and HKG won't enjoy this, and with China Southern's largest hub just up the road, and Air China now flying
out of Shenzen long haul, things may not be so easy.

Lufthansa wrote:

Of course its not green....

So if said territory denies Cathay Pacific, or if Cathay is forced to avoid overflight in the interest of crew and passenger safety of said country....

Should mainland China’s Airlines be expected to offset this environmental degradation with additional carbon credit purchases?

zakuivcustom wrote:

:banghead:

"I can't find the right word" to say...as usual.

As for ramification:
Point 1, well, CX/KA crew doesn't exactly like working on mainland routes anyway
Point 2 would be the greater concern. There's the privacy ramification (And they STILL wonder why HKers are so against the extradition treaty) along with random denial of overflight (B/c, well, it's mainland China, law enforcement are as arbitrary as it gets). The European flights all overfly mainland airspace, as does a fair amount of N. American flights especially coming from US (via polar route). Now, CX can always go around mainland airspace, at the expense of using more fuels. Flight southward (i.e. Australia/SE Asia/India plus Middle East) are not really affected, as are flights to Japan/South Korea/Taiwan.
Point 3, what is CAAC going to do? Ban CX from overflying China?

At the end, it's all politics. It'll be interesting to see CX's response. CX Union are certainly going to go on full strike if management decided to give in to CAAC at the expense of their employee, especially if it's something like a list of employees that went on strike on the 5th, or worse, layoff people b/c of their political beliefs (Yeah, that's going to REALLY go well).

I have just double checked the announcement. The wording used for point 2 was Mainland China's territorial airspace. That should mean the airspace that is south of and east of Hong Kong are also being affected, despite being part of Hong Kong FIR. In other words, any unapproved crew will not be able to fly out of Hong Kong.

c933103 wrote:

I have just double checked the announcement. The wording used for point 2 was Mainland China's territorial airspace. That should mean the airspace that is south of and east of Hong Kong are also being affected, despite being part of Hong Kong FIR. In other words, any unapproved crew will not be able to fly out of Hong Kong.

I read somewhere that enforcement of this scheme will be via mainland ATC either accepting or not accepting handover of a CX flight based on the crew roster.

So flights within the HK FIR and flights to the south and east should be fine. But flights to the southwest through Sanya FIR to South Asia might be affected.

c933103 wrote:

I have just double checked the announcement. The wording used for point 2 was Mainland China's territorial airspace. That should mean the airspace that is south of and east of Hong Kong are also being affected, despite being part of Hong Kong FIR. In other words, any unapproved crew will not be able to fly out of Hong Kong.

Yeah...good luck enforcing that. What's CAAC going to do? Shot down a passenger plane?

Ultimately, it's stupid "white terror" BS that PRC is trying to pull - i.e. they pretty much want to shut things down using whatever method short of sending in PLA.

Again, will be interesting to see CX's response. I expect CX to bend over their back (B/c...well, business always does) and let that pilot along with the crew that leak the pax information, send out memo that basically prevent its employee from attending rallies, etc. Of course, CX union is actually pretty strong, and if CX management bend backward too much, it'll lead to another strike that will be awful for CX.

GCT64 wrote:

zakuivcustom wrote:

As for ramification:
Point 1, well, CX/KA crew doesn't exactly like working on mainland routes anyway
Point 2 would be the greater concern. There's the privacy ramification (And they STILL wonder why HKers are so against the extradition treaty) along with random denial of overflight (B/c, well, it's mainland China, law enforcement are as arbitrary as it gets). The European flights all overfly mainland airspace, as does a fair amount of N. American flights especially coming from US (via polar route). Now, CX can always go around mainland airspace, at the expense of using more fuels. Flight southward (i.e. Australia/SE Asia/India plus Middle East) are not really affected, as are flights to Japan/South Korea/Taiwan.
Point 3, what is CAAC going to do? Ban CX from overflying China?

Quite possibly, the mainland has all the power here and, IMHO, will not hesitate to, effectively, ground CX if that is required.

Or even force CX to shut down and rebrand as Air China. It may be ridiculous but since its the Chinese Government, its possible.

TheEuphorian wrote:

Or even force CX to shut down and rebrand as Air China. It may be ridiculous but since its the Chinese Government, its possible.

They don't have to shut it down, they just have to "nationalize" CX or buy up the remaining 80% of CX (Not like Swire will sell, though). Ok, we're getting too ridiculous, b/c last thing Chinese gov't want is to have investors totally lose confidence not just in HK, but also in China, and accelerate their economic decline.

AngMoh wrote:

The big no-no the CX staff did was to publish passenger info online. From:

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politic ... g-protests

"The airline also came under attack on mainland social media after a staff member leaked information online about the flight details of a group of Hong Kong police officers."

This is unacceptable anywhere in the world and would get you fired or prosecuted in most places. It was probably the main excuse to take action as this is really an airline problem and can not be explained away as a personal opinion by their staff.

what the scmp report said

"In its statement, the CAAC was also referring to news this week that Cathay staff had leaked to a social media group the flight schedule of the Hong Kong police soccer team, which was to play a game on the mainland."

I assume this game was open to the public and well advertised beforehand so it is hardly the same as leaking the travel schedules of individual police officers on private travel Though still not appropriate!

trex8 wrote:

AngMoh wrote:

The big no-no the CX staff did was to publish passenger info online. From:

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politic ... g-protests

"The airline also came under attack on mainland social media after a staff member leaked information online about the flight details of a group of Hong Kong police officers."

This is unacceptable anywhere in the world and would get you fired or prosecuted in most places. It was probably the main excuse to take action as this is really an airline problem and can not be explained away as a personal opinion by their staff.

what the scmp report said

"In its statement, the CAAC was also referring to news this week that Cathay staff had leaked to a social media group the flight schedule of the Hong Kong police soccer team, which was to play a game on the mainland."

I assume this game was open to the public and well advertised beforehand so it is hardly the same as leaking the travel schedules of individual police officers on private travel Though still not appropriate!

The more I think about this...what does HK Police info has to do with mainland China anyway?

Unless PRC is admitting that Officers from Public Security Bureau had infiltrate the HKPF, as widely suspected.

If Cathay stand firm for the flights that only fly through Chinese air space but destinations are not China,
it would be quite interesting to see if there are any rerouting from today/tomorrow.
Cathay flies to Europe mainly with their A350/77W, which are technically possible to fly longer
(Perhaps the route used by BR and CI?)
Of cause that's at the expense of more fuel and probably a bit offloading

Apparently, Cathay has changed the passport type for their crew who hold HK passport, from HKSAR passport to Chinese-SAR

https://www.facebook.com/39649558055750 ... 0268382692

I honestly don't know how it helps

Finally, this incident is purely political. On 5Aug, Cathay group had a lower strike ratio (IIRC it was around 10%) than another HK-based carrier, HX, because of its higher ratio of international crew. Note that there was a 30% absence at the ATC tower, reducing the airport capacity by half. If the 'safety issue' raised by CAAC made sense, they should cancel every flight flying to Hong Kong by Chinese carriers. Who knows what would happen.

If this issue doesn't resolve quickly, would it likely be another QR's incident?

zakuivcustom wrote:

c933103 wrote:

I have just double checked the announcement. The wording used for point 2 was Mainland China's territorial airspace. That should mean the airspace that is south of and east of Hong Kong are also being affected, despite being part of Hong Kong FIR. In other words, any unapproved crew will not be able to fly out of Hong Kong.

Yeah...good luck enforcing that. What's CAAC going to do? Shot down a passenger plane?

Ultimately, it's stupid "white terror" BS that PRC is trying to pull - i.e. they pretty much want to shut things down using whatever method short of sending in PLA.

Again, will be interesting to see CX's response. I expect CX to bend over their back (B/c...well, business always does) and let that pilot along with the crew that leak the pax information, send out memo that basically prevent its employee from attending rallies, etc. Of course, CX union is actually pretty strong, and if CX management bend backward too much, it'll lead to another strike that will be awful for CX.

Actually I am wondering ... will flights across East China Sea Air Identification Zone be affected?

zakuivcustom wrote:

Yeah...good luck enforcing that. What's CAAC going to do? Shot down a passenger plane?

They simply won't let the flight into Chinese airspace, and it won't take off until it files and gets approved for a different route not involving Chinese airspace. No reasonable airline or flight captain will just fly into prohibited airspace. If they do - they will be treated as an airspace violator and yes, jet fighters will be sent to identify the plane and force it to land.

According to an internal email leaked on local transportation forum: https://www.hkitalk.net/HKiTalk2/thread ... 1-1-1.html
KA flights departing from China will face an "Aviation Security Inspections" which mean that cabin crew and flight crew could be interviewed by CAAC inspector with security related question and cabin security check will also be carried out. It is also said that failure to comply will be served with severe penalty.

mercure1 wrote:

China as with any nation is certainly within its rights to bar specific crew members it deems a risk. The U.S does the same via its visa process with all types of random past events barring people.

One problem - Mainland China deems HK a part of China. You can't deny your own citizens the right to travel inside your own country without political pushback. Hong Kong can't be a part of China when it suits the Communist Party and not a part of China when it suits them. It's either a part of China (and all HKers have the same rights, privileges and immunities that mainlanders have) or not (and China needs to go back to Beijing with their tail between their legs and mind their own business).

Just another desperate attempt of the Communist party to meddle in something they have no business meddling in.

albert648 wrote:

mercure1 wrote:

China as with any nation is certainly within its rights to bar specific crew members it deems a risk. The U.S does the same via its visa process with all types of random past events barring people.

One problem - Mainland China deems HK a part of China. You can't deny your own citizens the right to travel inside your own country without political pushback. Hong Kong can't be a part of China when it suits the Communist Party and not a part of China when it suits them. It's either a part of China (and all HKers have the same rights, privileges and immunities that mainlanders have) or not (and China needs to go back to Beijing with their tail between their legs and mind their own business).

I suppose then, that Hong Kong should be following the mainland communist rules as well? Make it truly equal-scrape the Hong Kong Basic Law?

You have to be careful with that argument, as it can also be used against Hong Kong too. There are advantages to the one county, two system policy for Hong Kong. Hong Kong can’t be part of mainland China when it suits them and also be a special administrative system separate from mainline China politics/policy when it suits them either. If you want semi-autonomy you have the accept the right for the other body to do things like this by treating you as a semi-autonomous region and not as a full fledge part of the nation. You can’t demand autonomy and then get upset when you get treated as autonomous people.

albert648 wrote:

mercure1 wrote:

China as with any nation is certainly within its rights to bar specific crew members it deems a risk. The U.S does the same via its visa process with all types of random past events barring people.

One problem - Mainland China deems HK a part of China. You can't deny your own citizens the right to travel inside your own country without political pushback. Hong Kong can't be a part of China when it suits the Communist Party and not a part of China when it suits them. It's either a part of China (and all HKers have the same rights, privileges and immunities that mainlanders have) or not (and China needs to go back to Beijing with their tail between their legs and mind their own business).

Just another desperate attempt of the Communist party to meddle in something they have no business meddling in.

Except such travel restriction have been enforced very widely already. Legally there're less than 100 Chinese cities where their population can apply a special kind of visa that can let them travel to Hong Kong on their own. And there are also hundreds of Hong Kong citizen who have been denied from traveling to other part of China because of political reason.

https://hk.news.yahoo.com/國泰發通告指將向內地提供機組人員名單-104638889.html
Cathay in an internal memo urge its crew to comply with request from Chinese authority, say more frequent security check is to be expected and that they should comply with them to avoid delay, and Cathay will also submit crew member list of flights to or over mainland China to the Chinese authority. It also said that such kind of check is common in China as well as elsewhere and the company have long been able to handle them with patient and profession and respect.
It also remind crew that action of crew will be seen as representing Cathay and any company property or flights shouldn't be used as platform to discuss matter unrelated to duty and when on duty they should also refrain from voicing personal opinion that are unrelated to their duty.

https://finance.sina.com.cn/money/bank/ ... 1125.shtml
Meanwhile on Chinese website it is reported that a Chinese state-own enterprise told its employee to not travel on Cathay or Cathay Dragon whenever possible if the trip was for the business, and recommend employees to avoid them when travelling for private reason.

zakuivcustom wrote:

The more I think about this...what does HK Police info has to do with mainland China anyway?
Unless PRC is admitting that Officers from Public Security Bureau had infiltrate the HKPF, as widely suspected.

No need for conspiracy theory here. The HK police soccer team whose flight details were leaked was on a flight to (or ?from) CTU where they were attending some sort of world police game. The CX staff who leaked the details labelled them "dirty cops" on their Whatsapp post and there was calls (by this person or someone else I am not entirely sure) to meet them at the airport with malicious intent. Not saying it is not a convenient excuse for CAAC but you can't argue they have jurisdiction on this matter.

https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/tra ... d-security

So basically, as expected, CX bent backward.

The part that still scares me is the self-censorship that is likely going to happen due to political pressure. Crews working mainland Chinese routes, in particular, would likely face stuff like phone inspection (it is China...). That does nothing but to piss off yet even more HKers.

zakuivcustom wrote:

c933103 wrote:

I have just double checked the announcement. The wording used for point 2 was Mainland China's territorial airspace. That should mean the airspace that is south of and east of Hong Kong are also being affected, despite being part of Hong Kong FIR. In other words, any unapproved crew will not be able to fly out of Hong Kong.

Yeah...good luck enforcing that. What's CAAC going to do? Shot down a passenger plane?

Ultimately, it's stupid "white terror" BS that PRC is trying to pull - i.e. they pretty much want to shut things down using whatever method short of sending in PLA.

Again, will be interesting to see CX's response. I expect CX to bend over their back (B/c...well, business always does) and let that pilot along with the crew that leak the pax information, send out memo that basically prevent its employee from attending rallies, etc. Of course, CX union is actually pretty strong, and if CX management bend backward too much, it'll lead to another strike that will be awful for CX.

The (2) ground staffs who leaked HK police soccer team's travelling information have been fired.
The pilot involved in the protest has been grounded sin mid-Jul.

CX can't afford being banned from China airspace.

albert648 wrote:

One problem - Mainland China deems HK a part of China. You can't deny your own citizens the right to travel inside your own country without political pushback. Hong Kong can't be a part of China when it suits the Communist Party and not a part of China when it suits them. It's either a part of China (and all HKers have the same rights, privileges and immunities that mainlanders have)

There is no inherent right to travel even in the U.S via airplane, let alone serving as a crew member with authorities and security clearances that come along with it.

If a government wants to bar you, they are certainly within their rights.

Heck and China is hardly the first county that may vet crews that operate in its airspace. Airlines for decades have supplied name list to foreign authorities. Some nations like Israel specifically even individually vet pilots as part of security protocols.

HKG/CX is the hub for Taiwanese flying to Europe. Could the situation reverse if CX has issues with overflying China from North America and many transfer in TPE instead?
Back in the day CX made quite a fortune for China - Taiwan traffic, things change.

c933103 wrote:

https://hk.news.yahoo.com/國泰發通告指將向內地提供機組人員名單-104638889.html
Cathay in an internal memo urge its crew to comply with request from Chinese authority, say more frequent security check is to be expected and that they should comply with them to avoid delay, and Cathay will also submit crew member list of flights to or over mainland China to the Chinese authority. It also said that such kind of check is common in China as well as elsewhere and the company have long been able to handle them with patient and profession and respect.

It also remind crew that action of crew will be seen as representing Cathay and any company property or flights shouldn't be used as platform to discuss matter unrelated to duty and when on duty they should also refrain from voicing personal opinion that are unrelated to their duty.

https://finance.sina.com.cn/money/bank/ ... 1125.shtml
Meanwhile on Chinese website it is reported that a Chinese state-own enterprise told its employee to not travel on Cathay or Cathay Dragon whenever possible if the trip was for the business, and recommend employees to avoid them when travelling for private reason.

No different than most company's social media policy these days. Bringing discredit on your employer or being identifiable as an employee when engaged in questionalble or illegal activities can result in discipline or discharge.

A question related to the topic: I recently came across a video clip purportedly recording a cabin announcement during a CX flight in support of the protestors in HK. The announcement itself is inoffensive and does not advocate violence. Nevertheless, what are the rules or regulations with regard to airline crews expressing their political view while on duty? This question is not limited to CX of course, what would an US airline do if one of its flight attendants hands out "MAGA" pamphlets in the cabin or a BA pilot at the end of his/her usual in-flight announcement adds "by the way, I really think Brexit is the worst thing we voted for for a long time"?