The weather is expected to deteriorate rapidly from Tuesday (Sept 23), and gale-force to storm-force winds will impact the city on Thursday (Sept 24). -- PHOTO: AFP
HONG KONG (Reuters/Bloomberg): Hong Kong International Airport will scale down operations and cancel most flights from Sept 23, as the Asian financial hub braces itself for Super Typhoon Ragasa, one of its strongest super typhoons in years.
Yeung Tat-wing, director of service delivery at the Hong Kong Airport Authority, said flight operations would be significantly reduced after 6pm on Sept 23 and most flights would be affected on Sept 24.
Cathay Pacific Airways, the city’s flagship carrier, said more than 500 flights would be cancelled and gradually resumed on Sept 25.
It said in a message on its website that it was waiving ticket change fees so travellers can rearrange trips more easily.
Other local airlines had also waived penalties for travel between Sept 23 and 25.
By limiting flights, officials are aiming to avoid a repeat of Typhoon Koinu in October 2023, when more than 10,000 travellers were stranded overnight after that storm caught the authorities off guard.
Airlines are currently planning to reschedule long-haul flights to mitigate disruptions, while short-haul services leaving on Sept 23 may not return immediately.
The Hong Kong Observatory said it would issue the lowest typhoon signal at noon on Sept 22, upgrading it to the second-highest later in the day between 8pm and 10pm.
The weather is expected to deteriorate rapidly from Sept 23, and gale-force to storm-force winds will impact the densely populated city on Sept 24, with winds expected to reach hurricane force offshore and on high ground.
Across the city, residents started stockpiling daily necessities. Long queues formed at supermarkets where products like milk had already sold out, while vegetables were being sold for more than triple their normal price at fresh markets.
Hong Kong was last battered by a super typhoon in September 2023, when Saola, classed as one of the city’s strongest-ever storms, halted flight operations for all airlines for 20 hours. In July 2025, storm Wipha forced most airport services to pause for 13 hours.
Hong Kong’s airport shutdown underscores the risks Ragasa poses to the city’s densely packed 7.5 million residents and its economy.
The storm has already intensified into a super typhoon, packing sustained winds of 230kmh near its core, equivalent to a Category 4 hurricane, according to the Hong Kong Observatory.
On average, Hong Kong’s airport handles 1,100 flights and 190,000 passengers a day, serving 58 million travellers in the 12 months through August. Cathay Pacific Airways, whose share of flights in and out of Hong Kong International Airport is 45 per cent, faces an outsized impact.
Aircraft not in use will be flown out of Hong Kong to avoid damage from debris. A limited number of cargo flights could resume late on Sept 24, though no decision has been finalised, people familiar with the matter said.
Ragasa – a Filipino word for rapid or fast motion – was located in the Luzon Strait roughly 1,100km south-east of Hong Kong as at the morning of Sept 22. Government work and classes in metropolitan Manila and in nearly 30 provinces across the Philippines were suspended on Sept 22 due to forecasts of heavy rain.
The super typhoon’s current trajectory puts it on course to swipe Hong Kong, and make landfall some time on Sept 24 over China’s Guangdong province, the observatory says. -- REUTERS, BLOOMBERG
