The authority managing Hong Kong’s international airport is doing all it can to coax overseas airlines and seek new routes to fill the extra capacity created by the soon-to-debut three-runway system while waiting for city flag carrier Cathay Pacific Airways to fully restore its pre-pandemic passenger capacity.
In an exclusive interview with the Post, the Airport Authority’s acting CEO, Vivian Cheung Kar-fay, said it had taken a spate of proactive actions “beyond what an airport would do”, including offering financial incentives to airlines to increase and create routes, giving away free air tickets to attract tourists, and organising high-profile conferences to draw business travellers.
Hong Kong International Airport’s HK$141.5 billion (US$18 billion) three-runway system will debut on Thursday and will add in stages 50 per cent in passenger capacity to 120 million annually.
It will double the cargo capacity from 5 million tonnes now to 10 million tonnes per annum by around 2035.
Cathay, meanwhile, delayed its target of returning to pre-pandemic passenger levels by three months from the end of this year to the first quarter of 2025.
“I’m still expecting that, hoping there is no revised plan because a large part of our plan depends on their plan,” Cheung said.
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