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China flights jam Hong Kong airport
The chairman of Hong Kong's airport authority, Victor Fung, calls it "the traffic jam in the air".
- By Tom Mitchell, Financial Times
- Published: 00:00 January 22, 2007
Hong Kong: The chairman of Hong Kong's airport authority, Victor Fung, calls it "the traffic jam in the air".
China-bound flights emanating from the territory are restricted to a single cross-border route, with no alternative paths available in the event of bad weather and with strict spacing enforced between aircraft. The congestion at airports as far away as Shanghai or Beijing frequently ripples back through the system, stranding passengers in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong's high-altitude dilemma, which is raising increasing concern in the territory, is a reminder that the "one country, two systems" formula that guarantees its autonomy is also a recipe for countless sources of friction with powerful institutions in China. In this case, Hong Kong's complaint ultimately lies with the People's Liberation Army, which jealously guards the country's airspace and limits civilian aircraft to narrow paths through it.
"There's a larger policy issue within China over who has control of the airspace," Fung said last month at a year-end media briefing.
In his recent presentation, the chief executive of Hong Kong's largest airline, Cathay Pacific, referred to the growing congestion at Hong Kong International Airport as a "serious" issue whose resolution is "primarily a question of determination and [is] not a technical problem". "The current situation is choking growth rates - immediate action is required," Philip Chen said.
Dragonair, the Hong Kong-based regional airline controlled by Cathay, serves more China destinations than any other overseas airline, and is therefore most affected by inflexible management of China's airspace. During peak summer travel months, 20-25 per cent of Dragonair's flights are delayed by more than 30 minutes.
It is not just passenger convenience that is at stake. HKIA is one of the world's busiest airports, moving 40.7 million passengers in 2005. That is about the same number as passed through both Beijing and Shanghai, but Hong Kong's real worry is growing competition from nearby Guangzhou and Shenzhen, which handled another 23.6 million and 16.3 million people respectively.
One mooted solution for Hong Kong - the construction of a third runway - is dismissed by many industry executives. They argue that such a costly project, which would also require another major landfill at HKIA, is pointless if cross-border air traffic and airspace issues are not ironed out first.
HKIA currently handles only 54 aircraft movements an hour, compared with a design capacity of 80-85, which would be more in line with that managed by the airport's international peers.
Hong Kong's conservative civil aviation department, which enforces a 20 per cent greater separation between aircraft than London does, reckons it can tweak capacity to 56 movements per hour within two years.
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