South China Morning Post reported that Cathay Dragon was notified last night that five of its passengers on the KA734 flight tested positive for the virus upon arrival in the city on Friday.

“As a result of the Civil Aviation Department’s directive, we will suspend our passenger services between Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong until Oct 3,” said Cathay Dragon in a statement.

It added that affected passengers would be refunded or given alternative travel arrangements.

The airline has since sent the affected aircraft for deep cleaning and is currently conducting close contact tracing of the passengers involved, it said.

The passengers with Covid-19 had flown to Malaysia through Air India Express before connecting to Cathay Dragon. Authorities in Hong Kong said all passenger documents complied with strict health rules.

Prior to this, Air India Express was banned from entering Hong Kong for two weeks in August, after 12 imported cases were detected.

It was also banned by Dubai authorities last week for 15 days starting from Sept 18, after the airline’s ground staff boarded two passengers who tested positive for Covid-19. However, the ban was lifted after 24 hours.

Despite risks of increased exposure to the virus, the Hong Kong government had advised people stranded in India to fly in via transit routes, such as Kuala Lumpur.

Imported cases from India have previously arrived in Hong Kong via Kuala Lumpur, Doha and Singapore.

After the United States, India has the second highest number of Covid-19 cases in the world at 5.3 million.

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