United and American Airlines stop resumed Hong Kong services over mandatory Covid-19 testing concerns

United and American Airlines have suspended their flights to Hong Kong again after concerns were raised over the mandatory testing of aircrew for Covid-19. The sudden cancellation of the relaunched United service comes from concerns raised by the company’s pilots union over the way testing for the coronavirus was conducted in Hong Kong. Politico reported that American had decided to halt its services to Hong Kong until at least August 5, citing the new testing rules, according to a memo sent by the Allied Pilots Association to its members. Over the past two days, 38 people have been confirmed as being infected with the disease in Hong Kong. Of those, most have involved local cases, and some patients had no travel history and no identifiable source of infection. A United spokesman said: “UA877 was cancelled due to recent changes in testing protocol at HKG. United flights to and from HKG are suspended through July 10 (westbound). We are currently assessing how this impacts our future operations.” UA877 was scheduled to depart San Francisco for Hong Kong on July 8.<br/>