In a report released by local NGOs Green Sense and the Airport Development Concern Network (ADCN), the groups said that the current two runways at Chep Lap Kok airport are being used inefficiently and thus a third runway would be unnecessary, based on their analyses of Civil Aviation Department Data.
Michael Mo, spokesman for the ADCN said that “there are currently no efficient monitoring mechanisms to ensure our runway landing slots are used efficiently”, reports the SCMP. According to the report, narrow-body aircraft, which carry only half the number of passengers as a wide-body aircraft and thus are less efficient, made up 39% of all flights in 2012.
Such narrow-body aircraft were used for 70% of all flights to mainland China, with most of these lesser-known third- or fourth-tier cities. Roy Tam, a rep from Green Sense, complained that many of these flights are not full, “creat[ing] the illusion that there are many flights moving in and out”.
Mo took this accusation a step even further and said that in order to collect fees and to increase the number of flights landing and taking off from Hong Kong, the Airport Authority was allowing empty planes to fly back and forth. Tam warned that the airport was “at risk of becoming a small airport transit hub exclusively used by Chinese passengers (the horror!).
The Airport Authority stands by its claim that the current two runways will reach capacity within two years, and that a third runway could increase the airport’s capacity by roughly 44% by 2023.
Photo: Ken’ichi via Wikimedia Commons
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