XCCI (89)56
The Airport
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Kai Tak Airport
following Narita in Japan.
second
Page
4
busiest in Asia
>
is the
Up to end May 1989 the annual traffic throughput at Kai Tak amounted
to 16.2 million passengers, 91,000 aircraft movements and 714,000 tonnes of
cargo.
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term air
The consultants responsible for assessing the ultimate development potential of Kai Tak have prepared long
Tak have traffic forecasts up to the year 2010 (memorandum XCCI (89)3 refers). Passenger traffic is forecast to grow at 5.7% p.a.,
aircraft movements at 5.2% p.a. and cargo throughput at 6.5% p.a., as follows
Long Term Forecast of Air Annual Traffic Throughput
1990
1992
1995
1996
2000
2010
Passengers 16.7
18.1
22.9
24.2
30.2
48.7
(millions)
Aircraft
101,900 111,100 132,800 138,900 167,600
253,700
Cargo
(million tonnes)
0.76
0.88
1.1
1.2
1.5
2.6
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The consultants' assessment is that Kai Tak's current would be capacity
reached by
With 1992.
a package of improvements and measures to
of optimise usage
airport facilities, the saturation date would be deferred to 1996. However, the growth in air traffic since 1987 has been very significant. The number of
of passengers increased by 20% per annum and aircraft movements by 18%. If the growth in traffic continues at a rate well above the forecast, Kai Tak's ultimate capacity will be reached before 1996.
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Recent events in China led to a decline in June in tourist traffic to Hong Kong, but it is too early to ascertain whether this will have a significant long term
term impact on the forecast growth of air traffic. Even with the slower growth in traffic, the number of air passengers may still increase by
10% in 1989, i.e. exceeding the long term more than
trend forecast of 5.7% p.a. Unless actual traffic growth in the next few years falls well below this forecast, Kai Tak is unlikely to be able to serve Hong Kong's aviation needs beyond
beyond the mid-1990s.