HONG KONG (BLOOMBERG) - Demand for flights leaving Hong Kong is up as much as 306 per cent on the same time last year as residents pack their bags amid on-and-off talk of mass Covid-19 testing and lockdowns.
ForwardKeys, a Valencia, Spain-based travel data company, has observed a "steep rise" in outbound bookings from Jan 4 to Mar 7, with Singapore and Shanghai the most popular cities, according to data provided to Bloomberg.
The period starting Feb 8 saw the biggest jump in bookings, a time when Hong Kong's leader Carrie Lam was flagging ever tighter Covid-19 restrictions. Public gatherings were limited to two from four, hair salons were closed and stricter vaccine checks were required in shopping malls and supermarkets. Talks of mass lockdowns had also started to swirl early last month.
"People's motivation is more to escape from a surge in Covid as more than 70 per cent of travellers booked one-way tickets, increasing from only 26 per cent pre-pandemic," said Mr Olivier Ponti, ForwardKeys' vice-president of insights.
For the seven days commencing March 1, weekly bookings were up 113 per cent year-on-year but still down 84 per cent on pre-pandemic levels - underscoring how far away a recovery in air travel is for Hong Kong.
Singapore is the most easily accessible destination to vaccinated Hong Kong residents, while Shanghai is only open to Chinese citizens.
After a net record outflow of 71,354 people left Hong Kong in February, the exodus has continued this month as measured by official immigration border control data, although at a more muted rate.
The net number of people leaving the Asian financial hub fell 20 per cent last week.
While Shanghai is popular, flights there are now swiftly being curtailed by authorities after a spike in infections.
Hong Kong Airlines has reduced services to twice weekly from seven, its website shows, while the total number of daily seats on flights between Hong Kong and Shanghai has been scaled back by 77 per cent to just 408 as of Mar 14 from Feb 25, according to data from Cirium.
China reported 5,280 new local cases on March 14, according to figures published on Tuesday (March 15). About half of Hong Kong's 7.4 million people have already been infected with Covid-19, according to an estimate of the damage caused by the deadly Omicron wave that's overwhelmed the city.
