Hong Kong airport scrambles to deal with backlog of 500 flights as Wipha departs

Hong Kong airport is scrambling to deal with a backlog of 500 cancelled flights for about 100,000 passengers, with some people waiting there since Saturday amid the upheaval caused by Typhoon Wipha.

Chris Au Young, the Airport Authority’s general manager of terminal and passenger experience, said on Sunday afternoon that about 400 rescheduled flights would either depart or arrive in Hong Kong later in the day as the typhoon moved away from the city and weakened.

“More than 500 flights were cancelled this time. It will normally take two to three days for airlines to gradually resume them,” he said, adding that about 100,000 passengers were affected.

He said all 27 security check channels in the departure hall would operate overnight. The moves were among contingency measures put in place by the airport operator since Saturday.

The authority said in the evening that it would handle 120 arriving and 114 departing flights involving 35,000 passengers between 8pm on Sunday and 6am on Monday.

Wipha prompted the Observatory to issue its highest typhoon warning, a No 10 hurricane signal, earlier on Sunday. In force for almost seven hours, it was downgraded to the No 8 signal at 4.10pm and to No 3 at 7.40pm as the storm moved farther away from the city.