New Hong Kong airline prepares 'cargo-first' pandemic Plan B

Hong Kong startup carrier Greater Bay Airlines is preparing a fallback plan to start with cargo services first in late summer if pandemic conditions make passenger flights infeasible. "If the situation continues to be difficult, we will look at whether we can use our aircraft to fly more cargo operations to carry vaccines," CE Algernon Yau Ying-wah said this week. "We can use the aircraft for other purposes." Greater Bay is set to take delivery of the first of three leased, secondhand Boeing 737-800 jets in mid-February, though the plane will then undergo several months' refurbishment in Guangzhou before coming to Hong Kong. The new venture is the brainchild of Shenzhen-based property tycoon Bill Wong Cho-bau, whose Donghai Airlines is based in the mainland city abutting Hong Kong. Wong, known in the mainland as Huang Chubiao, originally launched Donghai with cargo flights in 2006 before adding passenger services eight years later. Cargo has been a relative bright spot amid the Hong Kong aviation sector's dire straits. Hong Kong International Airport, previously the busiest in Asia for passenger traffic, saw its traveler count plunge 87.7% to 8.84 million last year, with many put off by pandemic worries and the city's tight quarantine controls on arriving fliers. Cargo flights, however, grew 18.3% for the year, though overall freight volumes slipped 7%.<br/>