Operations resume at Hong Kong airport after protests: authorities

Operations resumed at Hong Kong airport on Tuesday morning, authorities said, with flights due to start departing and arriving a day after protests shut down the major travel hub.

“We have resumed check-ins,” a spokesman for the airport told AFP, confirming flights would be resuming within the next hour at one of the world’s busiest aviation hubs.

The flight status board at the departures hall showed several flights listed as “boarding soon” with new take-off times listed for others.

Passengers with luggage were being checked in for flights, and only a handful of the thousands of protesters who flooded into the airport a day earlier remained in the building.

Authorities announced Monday afternoon the cancellation of all remaining arriving and departing flights from the airport after more than 5,000 black-clad pro-democracy protesters staged a peaceful rally at the building.

Throughout the evening, protesters gradually left the airport, but there was no police operation to clear them by force.

By Tuesday morning, many of the posters and signs the protesters had placed throughout the terminals had been taken down, but graffiti — some reading “an eye for an eye” — had not yet been cleared.

The protesters adopted the slogan for their demonstration at the airport after a women suffered a serious face injury, reportedly losing her sight in one eye, at demonstrations that turned violent on Sunday night.

Protesters have said they plan to return to the airport later in the day to resume their demonstrations.

© Agence France-Presse