Since Hong Kong lifted most of its travel restrictions last December, flights have gradually increased, and so has passenger traffic.

Hong Kong International Airport handled 3.1 million passengers in May, which was 50 per cent of the level recorded in the same month of 2019.

From this month, there will be fewer flights between the two financial centres since the lifting of travel curbs, amid sluggish demand.

Cathay Pacific Airways’ budget arm HK Express will no longer fly its daily service to Singapore with a spokeswoman citing “commercial reasons”.

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That leaves four daily flights on Cathay Pacific, another four on Singapore Airlines and one on its budget arm Scoot, according to Cirium.

Scheduled seat capacity between Hong Kong and Singapore has lagged, recovering to just half of 2019 levels.

Independent aviation analyst Brendan Sobie, who is based in Singapore, said the withdrawal of HK Express was a setback as it resulted in a further reduction in flights between the two places and fewer low-cost carrier options.

He explained Scoot was operating fewer Hong Kong flights than before the pandemic and another Singapore-based low-cost carrier, Jetstar Asia, had not yet resumed its service to the city.

“Price sensitive or leisure travellers gravitate towards low-cost carriers. If you hardly have any low-cost options then, obviously, it’s harder to attract these tourists,” Sobie said.

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It was surprising that seat capacity in Hong Kong for the Singapore Airlines Group – which comprises the namesake carrier and budget operator Scoot – was only about 50 per cent recovered, he said. Overall levels for the group had reached about 90 per cent of pre-pandemic numbers.

Its slow Hong Kong recovery was also impacted by the suspension of its service from the city to San Francisco, according to Sobie.

“They are just not prioritising Hong Kong so far … It’s their least recovered market,” he said.

Fewer flights to the city state by Cathay Pacific had also taken a toll on connectivity between the two markets, leading to reduced transit traffic beyond the two cities.

A spokeswoman for Singapore Airlines said both mainland China and Hong Kong were important markets.

“We will continue to monitor the demand for air travel, and work with the relevant authorities, as we adjust our network and capacity,” she said.

Data from Cirium showed that in July on the Singapore to Hong Kong route Cathay was operating at 49 per cent of its scheduled seat capacity levels over the same month in 2019.

Meanwhile, the Singapore to mainland route has recovered faster despite the latter opening up later than Hong Kong. This is also despite both Singaporeans and Chinese travellers needing visas to travel to the mainland and Singapore, respectively.

Singaporeans were allowed 15-day visa-free visits before the pandemic, a measure which has yet to be reinstated, leading to lengthy queues at the application centre in the city state.

Seat capacity between Singapore and the mainland reached 71 per cent of pre-pandemic levels in July.

Lily Agonoy, managing director of tour agency Jebsen Travel, said airfares from Hong Kong were between 10 and 50 per cent more expensive than in 2019, which could be having an impact on demand.

A return economy class ticket to Singapore on Cathay was now 24 per cent higher at about HK$7,300 (US$932), according to Jebsen.

Agonoy said another factor was that hotels and restaurants were more expensive in Singapore compared with pre-pandemic times.

Despite the higher prices, the city state remained a popular destination for clients travelling for both business and leisure from Hong Kong, she noted.

Economist Simon Lee Siu-po, an honorary fellow at Chinese University’s Asia-Pacific Institute of Business, pointed out that low-cost carriers needed lots of passengers to break even, and HK Express might have reallocated resources to more popular destinations, such as Japan.

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Lee said that some people could be travelling directly from Singapore to the mainland, rather than stopping off in the city first.

Alicia Garcia Herrero, chief economist for Asia-Pacific at French investment bank Natixis, said Singapore and Hong Kong were less integrated than before. Companies tended to have their China headquarters in the city, while some firms had moved regional operations to Singapore during the pandemic, she explained.

“Increasingly, there is a bifurcation of headquarters meaning sometimes they both report separately to the global headquarters now. So there is less interaction between Hong Kong and Singapore business-wise,” she said.

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