Thousands gathered at the airport on Monday morning to check in for flights after Typhoon Wipha led to the cancellation of 500 flights and another 400 being rescheduled.

A passenger, Wong, told RTHK her flight to Yonago, Japan, was delayed for a day but that arrangements made by the airline were acceptable.

"I think the arrangements are pretty good, it's better for them to delay it rather than cancel. It's a bit annoying for us since we rented a car and we have to cancel our hotel booking for one night," she said.

"We had the same experience before: there was also a typhoon, and our flight was also delayed for a day. So this time, we thought we might just wait and see how it turns out, and it turned out to be fine at the end."

Another traveller, Cheung, said, "The delay shortened our holiday for a day, but I think it's alright, we just have to change our itinerary for a bit.

"I think the airline's arrangements were okay: they didn't need us to come to the airport and wait for days. I could just search for the flight information at home."

However, Bao, a tourist from Shanghai who was transiting through Hong Kong for Sydney, said, "It was horrible. I have been taking flights for over 20 years, and this time is the worst.

"I got here from Shanghai after staff at Shanghai said the Hong Kong side would make arrangements as a result of our delayed flight. I arrived here at midnight, and I missed my connection.

"I can understand that it's because of the typhoon, but no one arranged anything for us afterwards. A staff member kept saying it's not their problem and that we had to deal with it ourselves. He didn't help us out with rescheduling, or booking a hotel, he just ran away."

Lugamila, who's bound for Manila, told RTHK: "I wasted my three days here, instead of spending my vacation time in the Philippines with a family reunion.

"I'm bored and so tired even after sleeping. Sleeping while sitting like this [on the chairs], is not comfortable at all: you feel tired and not fresh, and I feel backaches and everything."

Another stranded passenger, Tom, also had to wait for more than 24 hours before he was able to board his rescheduled flight back to Frankfurt.

"They [the airline] rebooked the flight for us, with an additional stop in Chengdu, China," he said. "We had to sleep here at the airport because they didn't get us a hotel, they didn't get us anything. So we're pretty tired now."

The Airport Authority's executive director, Steven Yiu, said more than 1,000 flights would be scheduled for Monday and that operations remained smooth.

"We are still using the flight rescheduling control system, and the system will run until midnight today," he said.

"But the capacity of our runway and operations have returned to normal levels.

"We will slowly shut down our flight rescheduling control system. As for stranded passengers, it won't be zero, but the number is relatively low, as some flights only operate once or twice a week."

The authority said earlier that more than 230 flights departed and arrived between Sunday night and Monday morning after Typhoon Wipha moved away from the SAR.
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Last updated: 2025-07-21 HKT 13:12