TNAG-0962-FCO40-1181-Possible-new-airport-for-Hong-Kong-1980 — Page 3

The following considerations mainly prompted their recommendations:

(a) Hong Kong sits astride the most heavily

travelled air routes in Asia where, at the time of their report, the average growth rate for international air travel in the Far Last was 180 per annum, as compared with 12.5% for the world as a whole, and 19% for Hong Kong itself;

(b) Kai Tak's busy period

the afternoon hours was (and still is) determined by the heavy traffic on the trunk routes through Bangkok and Tokyo, morning departures from either point enabling services to turn around at or pass through Kai Tak in the afternoon and arrive at either point in the evening. This pattern of usage was (and still is) a limiting constraint on air traffic at Kai Tak;

(c) restrictions on landings and take-offs

at Kai Tak between 11.30 p.m. and 6.30 a.m. necessitate ever tighter scheduling of aircraft movements during the remainder of the 24-hour period. The forecast figure of one flight over Kowloon City every 100 seconds for five continuous

hours a day by 1984 was considered socially unacceptable;

(a) it seemed likely in 1975 that road access

to Kai Tak might be seriously congested by 1981 during peak periods of airport usage;

(e) the construction of a further runway at

(f)

Kai Tak which could only provide sufficient additional capacity for two or three years' normal growth of air traffic would be very expensive, would be unacceptable

environmentally, and would in practice only provide a marginal increase in capacity.

Kai Tak airport meets the tests of operational safety for aircraft no larger than Boeing 747s and for traffic levels no higher than 100,000 annual operations. At this level, available accident statistics indicate a likelihood of 0.05 accidents per year (i.e. a 20-year inter-accident interval).

CONFIDENTIAL