Airlines cut 18 percent of their flights in and out of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region the day after the World Health Organization warned people not to travel there because of a deadly disease outbreak, officials said yesterday.

Responding to the WHO travel warning, British Airways temporarily suspended direct flights from London to Hong Kong, its Website said.

All of BA's London-Hong Kong services have been stopping in Bangkok for crew change since Wednesday. That will continue until at least the end of April, according to Grace Ng, a spokeswoman for the Civil Aviation Department.

Malaysia Airlines is temporarily cutting six routes to Hong Kong and Singapore, which have both been hit hard by severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, the mystery disease that has killed at least 82 people worldwide.

Hong Kong's two airlines, Cathay Pacific Airways and Dragonair, have already reduced flights because of the twin blows they have taken from the Iraq war and the spread of SARS, which has killed 17 people in Hong Kong. Six SARS patients have died in Singapore.

Out of 550 scheduled flights at Hong Kong's Chek Lap Kok airport on Thursday, 98 of them were scrapped, Airport Authority spokesman Chris Donnolley said yesterday.

All but one were passenger flights. At least 72 passenger flights and five cargo flights were canceled yesterday, according to an Airport Authority Website, but Donnolley said final figures for yesterday wouldn't be available until the end of the day.

Most of Hong Kong's flight cancellations have been to other places that have had SARS deaths: Singapore, Canada and Vietnam. But services to other destinations including Taiwan Province, the Philippines and Japan have also been affected, Ng said.

Donnolley said about 300 scheduled flights had been canceled since Sunday, compared to 100 cancellations in the previous week and the normal weekly number of about 35.

Business travelers have been postponing trips and vacationers have been staying away from Hong Kong, where at least 734 people have been sickened by the disease.

Donnelley said the airport has stepped up cleaning measures to try to avoid any infection from spreading, and some airlines have been screening passengers and refusing to board anybody who appears to have SARS symptoms.

Malaysia Airlines' cancellations of six flights to Singapore and Hong Kong are effective April 4-30 for the Hong Kong flights, and April 7-May 28 for the Singapore routes.

Four of the six canceled flights are daily, while the other two only fly on weekends, the airline said in a statement released late on Thursday.

Malaysian transport officials said earlier this week that flights to countries and regions affected by SARS would be reduced.

The airline spokesman yesterday declined to say why flights to China's mainland are unchanged, but said that it was monitoring the situation.

(eastday.com April 5, 2003)