Chinese tycoon bets on Hong Kong travel rebound with new airline

Even as one Hong Kong airline disappears under the pressure of the coronavirus pandemic after 35 years of operations, another is rising to take its place. Greater Bay Airlines, which takes its name from Chinese President Xi Jinping's pet project to integrate Hong Kong and Macao with Shenzhen, Guangzhou and other cities in Guangdong Province, has started hiring staff and preparing paperwork and aircraft to be able to take to the skies by mid-2021. Embodying the Greater Bay Area notion, the airline is the brainchild of Chinese property tycoon Huang Chubiao, who owns Shenzhen-based carrier Donghai Airlines. "We know it comes at a time when aviation is facing this unprecedented crisis," said Stanley Hui Hong-chung, an industry veteran who is advising Huang. "(But) he is damn serious about this project." Hui previously served as CE of Dragonair, the airline later renamed Cathay Dragon, which Cathay Pacific Airways shut down abruptly on Oct. 21. He also has been CE of the Airport Authority of Hong Kong and is currently an independent board director at Air China, which in turn is a major shareholder of both Cathay Pacific and Shenzhen Airlines. Hui bases his optimism about the recovery of the local aviation market on his experience leading Dragonair through the SARS epidemic in 2003. "Demand dried up and it was very frightening," he said. "(But) the reality is, I think eventually these things will be overcome," he added, expressing faith in the emergence of effective vaccines and treatment for COVID-19 by next year.<br/>