It’s been a summer to remember for extreme weather in Hong Kong. Though Hong Kong stands as the world’s leading cargo hub, it’s no stranger to extreme weather. When Typhoon Wipha swept through in the summer, it triggered the maximum T10 storm signal. Flights were suspended from 5am to 6pm on 20 July. But at least that was a planned closure. Typhoons track slowly across the South China Sea enabling some contingencies to be made. Unlike two weeks later, when the city was affected by black rain events (black being the severest and rarest of storms), which caused further on-the-day disruption to the airport and Cathay’s operations. These were storms out of nowhere effectively, and you can read more about their impact and the recovery below. 

Then, in September, mega-typhoon Ragasa bore down on the city bringing a metres-high storm surge and hurricane-force winds. Feared to be worse than Typhoon Mangkhut in 2018, Hong Kong International Airport pre-emptively announced a closure of 36 hours, while Cathay Pacific flew some of its aircraft that would otherwise be grounded at the airport out of harm’s way at airfields across the region. Those that remained were weighted down with tonnes of fuel in the most sheltered parts of the airport. Wherever possible, the other aircraft waited out the storm at their destinations until safe to return to Hong Kong.

Whatever the extent of weather disruptions, however, Cathay Cargo always works swiftly to restore operations and protect customer shipments as best as possible, but ensuring in the first instance that temperature-sensitive and urgent shipments are prioritised. 

“A quick recovery from unavoidable disruption while keeping our customers informed is essential and indicative of our operational agility,” says Tim Wong, General Manager Cargo Service Delivery.

Recovery in motion

Despite best intentions, resumption after big events is not necessarily immediate. It depends on slot availability, which is restricted as part of the wider airport recovery plan, manpower readiness, because public transport stops operating in severe typhoons, and terminal capacity. Plus, with every airline working to restore operations at the same time, competition for shared resources such as ULDs and dollies intensifies. 

After events like this, the Airport Authority Hong Kong activates the Flight Rescheduling Control System (FRCS) when operations restart. This limits the volume of arriving and departing flights to help restore airport operations as quickly as possible. But it also takes time, with approval required for each flight. But airlines can resume flying before the official start, which was 6am in this case, so as not be caught by the restricted flow rates when operations officially.

In this instance, Cathay Cargo was able to fly in freighters from across the network to arrive ahead of the 6am window, alongside some of the aircraft that had been evacuated.

Communications and a seat at the table 

Behind the scenes, the duty team from Cargo Revenue Management Operations represent Cargo interests at meetings in the Integrated Operations Centre – the nerve centre of Cathay Pacific’s global operations – outlining the business priorities for Cargo. 

“They also maintained close coordination with the Cargo Operations Centre (COC) team, which in turn liaised with our Cathay Cargo Terminal and HAS by Cathay teams regarding ground handling staffing and equipment capacity during the storm,” says Wong. “Simultaneously, they worked with teams across the globe to orchestrate aircraft and crew movements, navigating slot restrictions and curfew constraints in various regions,”  

Armed with information about the recovery plan, the Cargo Revenue Management Operations team could relay news to sales teams so that they in turn could notify customers about unavoidable delays to shipments as the operation started to spark back into life. Learning from Wipha, many operational staff were billeted in the crew hotel or nearby, so that they would be able to deliver manpower to take advantage of the recovery to further minimise disruption for customers’ shipments.

Keeping cargo moving

“Operational excellence begins with care for our people,” says Wong. “We put plans in place to support those who needed to stay on site, ensuring they were prepared for the eventual resumption of operations. This balance between safety and readiness truly reflected our values in action.”

These plans also enabled the COC to coordinate shipment and unit build-up with the Cathay Cargo Terminal teams to spread out labour-intensive work, ensuring that freighter movements could resume smoothly as slots were approved  – 10 fully loaded freighters departed in the 12 hours during the restart restrictions. “It was a great achievement and by clearing the stranded cargo within a short period of time, we were able to minimise the snowball effect which would definitely have affected the new joining and connecting cargo,” says Wong. 

Black rain stops play

A good plan coming together. But while typhoons can be reliably tracked ahead of time, black rain often arrives unexpectedly, making operations a strategic challenge. In what was an especially unprecedented season, there were five black rain events in August, with the longest lasting 11 hours on 5 August. 

That day, the Hong Kong Observatory reported more than 14 inches of rain and more than 10,000 lightning strikes. While the airport is unlikely to flood, during “red lightning” alerts, ground staff must seek shelter. “We had 14 suspensions for lightning on that day,” says Calvin Hui, Head of Cargo Operations Hong Kong and Greater Bay Area. “The impact was not only on loading. Unpredictable push-back and landing times for both inbound and outbound flights severely impacted our ground operations, including people and ground equipment deployment.”

To mitigate the impact, Cathay Cargo allowed more time for dolly replenishment and staff deployment. Cargo loading was prioritised for passenger services on routes with less frequency and without freighter operations, along with shipments that required special handling like pharma and perishables or that had higher priority. 

Events like these can be disruptive, but every challenge presents a valuable opportunity to test new digital technologies that enable real-time tracking and support agile operational decisions. They weren’t found wanting and enabled a recovery that reflected Cathay Cargo’s commitment to delivering a reliable service from the ground up.