for a replacement airport is available, and that a policy of providing services to meet all of the demand will be followed, within all reasonable bounds. To these ends, planning should be continued to develop a specific course of action to provide a replacement airport for Hong Kong.
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A copy of the Consultants' "Executive Summary" of their report is at Annex A.
4
The Consultants' recommendation was based mainly on the following considerations:
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)
The geographical location of Hong Kong on the most heavily travelled air routes in Asia. Whereas the average growth rates for international air travel had been increasing by 12.5% per annum, the growth rate for the Far East had been 18% and for Hong Kong itself 19%.
The length of the principal stages flown from any major airport usually delineates the busy period of that airport. In Hong Kong the busy period has been and is likely to remain the afternoon hours. This is because the vast majority of traffic is on the Bangkok and Tokyo trunk routes and morning departures from either point permit turnaround or through services at Hong Kong in the afternoon, with arrival at either point in the evening. Thus the volume of air traffic that can be accommodated during the busy afternoon period is the limiting constraint on air traffic at Kai Tak.
The social consequences of airline schedules regulated to maximise capacity at Kai Tak. By 1984, it was estimated that there would be one flight over Kowloon City every 100 seconds for five continuous hours every afternoon, forcing increasing numbers of people to live and work in a totally unsuitable noise environment.
Road access to Kai Tak would be seriously congested during peak periods by 1981.
The only way to increase capacity would be to provide a second parallel runway, which would be an expensive project and would provide for only two or three years' normal growth.
CONFIDENTIAL #