Pilots advise passengers when they start a descent. Investors in Hong Kong’s flagship carrier Cathay Pacific have been on notice for most of 2019. And still its share price declines. The second revision to annual profit guidance in the space of a month — and one that implies a loss this year — signals one to bail out.

As often with airlines, much of the trouble is external. Tourists and business people are ditching trips to Hong Kong, where the streets roil with tear gas and dissent. Customers did the same when the territory was in the grip of the Sars virus in 2003. The number of passengers arriving in the city fell more than a third in October year on year, as they have each of the previous two months.

Flights to and from mainland China, a fifth of its total, fell 22 per cent last month compared with last year. Margins are squeezed by the discounted seats designed to attract reluctant travellers. Even cargo is not immune from politics. A handful of US lawmakers want to rethink Hong Kong’s special trading status given the government’s handling of the protests.