Cathay Pacific brand in spotlight as HK government investigates quarantine rule breaks

Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam said Cathay Pacific is being investigated and could face legal action if the airline and staff are found to have broken quarantine rules. 

At the media session before the weekly executive council meeting on Tuesday, Lam said the authorities were investigating whether Cathay Pacific had complied with the regulations. "There are two separate investigations that we have to conduct for ensuring that everybody is complying with the legal requirements. It is not a matter of fault-finding. I hope people will move away from this talk about fault-finding, who is the scapegoat of what," she said. 

She added, "If we discover through full investigations that some crew of Cathay Pacific, or some staff of Cathay Pacific, should not have been travelling back on a cargo flight and enjoying this exemption, that would be much bigger non-compliance. But this has to be put under full investigation and we will take legal action once we have the full evidence of what wrong it has gone into."

Multiple reports, including the South China Morning Post and AFP, said the latest wave of the pandemic was due to the city's aircrew members who breached home isolation rules and visited restaurants when they were infected with Omicron. Since last week, the city has tightened strict social distancing controls and travel restrictions. 

Cathay's chairman Patrick Healy said the company will comply with the government investigations, and according to Reuters, Healy also apologised for "disruption and anguish" caused by the outbreak.  Cathay also fired its two staff who tested positive for the Omicron variant for breaching regulations.

The airline is also facing pressure from the pro-establishment camp as many of them had visited a birthday party where some of the attendees were tested positive for COVID-19, which sparked concern and anger among the public too. 

Yesterday, Cathay said it was a common practice for its cabin crew to travel on outbound passenger flights and back on cargo-only passenger aircraft from July to December last year. It added that such measure complied with Hong Kong government's public health regulations. Moreover, Cathay said the arrangement was effective in keeping Hong Kong's supply chain and cargo traffic operating safely. 

After the announcement of tightened regulations by the government, Cathay employees who have done a layover at a foreign location are required to complete a compulsory quarantine at a designated hotel, regardless of arriving in Hong Kong on passenger or cargo flights. 

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