ENG-2018 — Page 281

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Transport

Government Fleet and Dockyard

A fleet of more than 900 government vessels serves 14 government departments. Seventy-five of these vessels are managed by the Marine Department to serve its port operations and the needs of other government departments. The vessels it manages include patrol launches, purpose-built conveyance launches, pontoons, hydrographic survey launches and explosives carriers. In 2018, the department also contracted 30 vessels, including conveyance launches and tugboats.

The Government Dockyard, managed by the department's Government Fleet Division, designs, procures, repairs and maintains all government vessels. It occupies a 9.8-hectare site on Stonecutters Island and has an 8.3-hectare sheltered water basin to moor vessels. There are 10 covered docking sheds, four movable canopies, 30 open-yard docking cradle spaces, a shiplift system and three ship-hoists capable of dry-docking vessels of up to 750 tonnes.

In 2018, 185 new craft costing $74 million were built for the government. Six new craft building contracts, worth $138 million, were awarded to shipbuilders. The expenditure in maintaining the Government Dockyard facilities and government fleet was close to $630 million.

Air Transport

Hong Kong is a major international and regional aviation centre. At the year end, more than 120 airlines were providing over 1,100 flights daily between Hong Kong and over 220 destinations worldwide.

Hong Kong International Airport

In 2018, the airport handled 74.7 million passengers, a rise of 2.5 per cent over 2017; 5.1 million tonnes of cargo including airmail, up 1.5 per cent; and 427,725 incoming and outgoing flights, up 1.7 per cent.

The airport provides extensive intermodal connections to the PRD region by land and sea. During the year, the SkyPier recorded about 90 daily ferry trips with Guangzhou's Nansha and Lianhuashan, Shenzhen's Shekou and Fuyong, Dongguan's Humen, Zhongshan, Zhuhai's Jiuzhou and Macao's Maritime Ferry Terminal and Taipa. Another 550 daily coach trips took passengers between the airport and about 110 PRD cities and towns, while cross-boundary limousines operated around 500 trips every day.

Airport Services

The Airport Authority carries out facility enhancement and expansion projects to cope with air traffic demand in the medium term under the two-runway system. The Midfield Concourse, fully operational in 2016, serves over one million passengers each month. The development of the remaining Midfield will be completed in phases by 2020, while Terminal 1 is being expanded.

Apart from infrastructure, the Airport Authority deploys automation and mobile technologies, such as e-Security Gates equipped with biometric technology at the security checkpoints of the airport's departure hall and smart check-in kiosks at off-site locations.

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