Transport | 263
Civil Aviation
Hong Kong is a major international and regional aviation centre. The Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA) is one of the busiest in the world. At year-end, there were 93 airlines providing about 5 100 weekly scheduled services between Hong Kong and more than 145 cities worldwide. In addition, an average of about 115 charter flights was made to and from HKIA each week.
Air Traffic in 2009
The global financial crisis had an adverse impact on air traffic in 2009. As a result, the total number of passengers passing through the airport during the year was 44.97 million, a drop of 4.62 per cent over 2008. The airport handled 3.35 million tonnes of cargo, a drop of 7.6 per cent over 2008. The number of flights to and from Hong Kong was 279 429, a drop of 7.2 per cent over 2008.
Hong Kong's total imports, exports and re-exports carried by air accounted for 39.1 per cent, 33.5 per cent and 31 per cent respectively in value terms in 2009.
Home Market Expansion
The Mainland, particularly the Pearl River Delta (PRD), is a major source of growth for Hong Kong. HKIA constantly enhances its multi-modal connectivity with the PRD to cater for the increasing traffic.
A new SkyPier for ferries serving PRD ports entered service in December 2009. The 16 500-square-metre SkyPier, eight times the size of the temporary facility, is linked to HKIA's passenger terminals by an automated people mover. As at December 2009, SkyPier operated 80 daily ferry trips to and from eight ports in the PRD and Macao, namely Nansha, Shenzhen's Shekou and Fuyong, Dongguan's Humen, Zhongshan, Zhuhai's Jiuzhou and Macao's Maritime Ferry Terminal and Taipa.
With an average number of 400 daily trips, HKIA's Mainland coach service reaches 90 PRD destinations. In 2009, the network was expanded to include Yangjiang and Zhanjiang to the west and Shantou and Chaozhou to the east. During the year, the Mainland limousine network was extended to Dongguan and the number of limousines serving HKIA grew from 100 to 142.
Airport Services
The HK$4.5 billion facility and capacity enhancement programme for the airfield and Terminal 1 (T1) made good progress during the year and will be completed in phases by 2011. The North Satellite Concourse, opened in December 2009, provides 10 additional bridge-served stands for narrow-bodied aircraft. This new facility will enable about 98 per cent of passengers to embark and disembark flights at HKIA using bridge-served parking bays. With the installation of new security screening channels and the reconfiguration of the Departures Immigration halls in T1, passengers now
now undergo baggage security inspection before proceeding to immigration clearance. These changes boost security screening capacity by 40 per cent and increase efficiency. The enhancement programme also upgrades the Transfer and Arrivals areas to streamline passenger flow and improve service quality, including the addition of airline and ferry transfer counters as well as security