Super Typhoon Bavi grounded 130+ HK flights to Taiwan and Japan — is the trip still worth it?
July 14, 2026
Super Typhoon Bavi tore across the South China Sea and East China coast last week, and Hong Kong felt it directly: more than 130 flights linking the city to Taiwan, mainland China and Japan were cancelled in a single weekend, alongside ten suspended high-speed rail services on the mainland. Cathay Pacific, HK Express, Hong Kong Airlines, Greater Bay Airlines and EVA Air all pulled services, with roughly two-thirds of the cancellations on the Hong Kong–Taipei route alone. Bavi has since weakened after landfall near Zhejiang, the skies have cleared, and Hong Kong currently has no cyclone warning in force. But typhoon season here runs May to November, this won't be the last named storm to touch your travel dates, and the real question is what a weekend of grounded flights actually does to the value of a Taiwan or Japan trip. Less than it feels like.
What actually happened
Bavi organised over unusually warm water in early July, tracked toward Taiwan, then curved into the Chinese coast near Yuhuan. At the peak of disruption, Hong Kong International Airport showed 64 inbound and 71 outbound cancellations in one day — Taipei and Kaohsiung bore the brunt, with Shanghai and Hangzhou services also axed and a handful of Osaka, Tokyo and Nagoya flights cut as the storm's outer bands reached further north. Airlines waived change fees for anyone booked through the affected window, which is the detail that matters most for your wallet: nobody flying HK–Taipei or HK–Japan that weekend was forced to eat a cancelled ticket.
What to actually do if you're booked
Rebook first, ask questions later — the waived-fee window is usually only open for a limited number of days after the storm, so use it rather than letting the booking lapse. Check the Hong Kong Observatory's tropical cyclone page directly before heading to the airport; it updates faster than most airline apps. If you bought travel insurance, read the storm clause now, not at the gate — many policies only cover a "named storm" if you bought the plan before it was named, so buying insurance the day before a typhoon arrives rarely helps. And if your flight wasn't cancelled but you're nervous, most airlines won't waive fees for a voluntary rebooking around weather that didn't actually disrupt your route.
The value read: a bad weekend, not a bad trip
Here's the part that matters for anyone still deciding whether to book Taiwan or Japan this summer: a 48-hour weather disruption doesn't change the underlying currency and price picture that made the trip good value in the first place. The yen is still sitting near multi-decade lows against the Hong Kong dollar, and the Taiwan dollar hasn't moved enough to dent what HK$10,000 buys in Taipei or Kaohsiung. What Bavi actually cost most travellers was a rebooked flight and a rearranged first day — not a more expensive trip. The travellers who lose value here are the ones who panic-cancel a well-priced booking over a storm that, statistically, will have passed well before their actual travel dates.
The smarter move for the rest of typhoon season: build one flexible day into any Taiwan or Japan itinerary between now and November, buy travel insurance before a storm has a name attached to it, and treat a cancelled flight as a rebooking task rather than a reason to abandon a trip that's still priced in your favour. Check where Taiwan and Japan currently sit on our rankings, browse Taiwan's destination page against its own pricing history, or see how the wider Asia region compares this month. The storm passes faster than the value window does.