Hong Kong is lifting its UK travel ban, with the government citing a “stabilizing local epidemic situation and the relatively satisfactory vaccination rate in the UK and Ireland” as the two main reasons. With this comes news that British Airways will resume passenger services to Hong Kong this weekend.
When it comes to travel restrictions and COVID-19 precautions, Hong Kong has had some of the toughest – going as far as imposing two-week bans on airlines when arrivals test positive. British Airways was also affected by this policy in mid-December.
But it wasn’t an airline-specific ban that has since kept British Airways from resuming service to the Special Administrative Region. Rather, it was a government-imposed suspension on all passenger services from the UK that forced the carrier to stop accepting travelers. This was in response to the UK variant that had emerged.
According to Business Traveller, when BA operates its passenger flight on May 9th from London Heathrow, it will be the first since December 2020. While the carrier has been flying to Hong Kong on a fairly regular basis since February, these services only transported cargo. The carrier was also allowed to fly back to London with passengers departing Hong Kong.
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