Passengers and Flight Movements @ HKIA Reach New Highs

In July 2011, passenger traffic and flight movements at Hong Kong International Airport gew 5.7% and 8.1% respectively from a year ago to new single-month records of 5 million and 28,880.

Cargo throughput however continued to show weakness and recorded a year-on-year decline of 6.1% to 341,000 tonnes.

The growth in passenger traffic was driven mainly by visitor traffic, which registered 10% growth over the same period last year. Passenger traffic to / from South East Asia also performed particularly well.

The cargo decline was attributed to the 8% drop in export volume and 9% drop in import volume. Transshipments grew by 2% year on year, while Taiwan experienced a double-digit drop.

Stanley Hui Hon-chung, Chief Executive Officer of Airport Authority Hong Kong, said July's traffic performance carried on the recent trend of steady passenger growth and relatively weaker cargo throughput. He said, "As summer is the traditional peak season for leisure travel, we expect passenger growth will continue in August. Meanwhile, in view of the recent changes and volatility in the global financial market, including the downgrade of the US government's credit rating by Standard & Poor's (S&P), we will stay alert and closely monitor the situation in the coming months."

 HKIA has further expanded its upstream check-in service in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) region. "We just added Macau Taipa as our fifth upstream check-in ferry point in late July, and we also opened two new city check-in facilities at Shenzhen Futian Coach Station and Shenzhen Grand Theatre in August," Mr Hui said.

This means passengers of specific airlines can obtain their boarding passes at the two city check-in facilities in Shenzhen before taking the shuttle buses or limousines operating regularly around the hour between these facilities and HKIA for travelling on international flights. At Taipa ferry pier, passengers can also check their bags, making their journey more comfortable.

"The extension of the check-in services to more points in Shenzhen and Macau will provide better and more convenient service to passengers who choose to travel through the extensive network of international air services that HKIA has to offer," Mr Hui added.

HKIA's cross-boundary transport network currently covers eight ferry ports and 115 coach destinations in the PRD, moving about 6,300 passengers by ferry and 5,000 passengers by coach or limousine each day.

For the first seven months of the year, the airport handled 30.8 million passengers and 191,375 flight movements in total, up 5.7% and 11.5% year on year respectively. Cargo registered a small decrease of 2.9% when compared with the corresponding period a year ago, amounting to 2.3 million tonnes.

On a rolling 12-month basis, flight movements registered a year-on-year increase of 12.7%, amounting to 326,300 movements. Passenger traffic rose 7.5% to 52.6 million and cargo tonnage increased 3.3% to 4.1 million.

See recent travel news from: Travel News Asia, Hong Kong Airport, July 2011, Hong Kong