The situation at Hong Kong Airlines seems to be getting worse by the day.

A couple of days ago I wrote about how Hong Kong Airlines is struggling to pay staff their November salaries on-time. Then yesterday I wrote about how how Hong Kong Airlines is ending all long haul flights, as they’re ending service to Australia, following them cutting flights to Australia, New Zealand, and the United States.

It’s now being reported that Hong Kong Airlines will be cutting inflight entertainment as of December 1, 2019. The company has apologized for the inconvenience, and says they are working with system suppliers to resume service as soon as possible.

Presumably this comes down to Hong Kong Airlines’ inability to pay the suppliers for the content. If they can’t pay employees I guess it’s only fair enough that they can’t pay for entertainment.

One really has to wonder how much longer this will go on. Short of a further influx of cash from parent company HNA Group (which probably isn’t in much of a position to do that anyway), it doesn’t seem like the airline has a path towards survival.

As all of this happens, the Air Transport Licensing Authority of Hong Kong is considering suspending the carrier’s operating license, given that they find the financial situation to be “unsatisfactory.”

One way or another I imagine something big will happen within the next week here. Whether that comes in the form of the airline voluntarily suspending operations, the airline having their license revoked, or HNA Group injecting more cash, remains to be seen.

They’re relying on ongoing ticket sales to pay salaries, and I imagine all of the news related to what’s going on is hurting ticket sales greatly.

(Tip of the hat to UA869)