Andrzej Jeziorski/HONG KONG
The new Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA) has been surrounded by controversy from the outset. A disastrous opening period, high airport charges, slow traffic growth and simmering worries about weather phenomena have threatened to overshadow the impressive engineering achievement the airport represents.
A replacement for the old, overcrowded, airport at Kai Tak - now in the hands of developers - the new airport was built on a huge island of reclaimed land called Chek Lap Kok, off the north shore of Lantau Island. The airport itself cost HK$70 billion ($9 billion) to build, with additional work such as bridge-building and land reclamation bringing the total project cost to HK$155 billion.
The HKIA construction project was daunting. Land reclamation to create the 1,248ha (3,075-acre) platform took 31 months. A new town for 260,000 people has been built next to the airport. Five bridges and four underground and cross-harbour tunnels have been built.
The passenger terminal is imposing, with 288 check-in counters and a luggage-handling capacity of more than 19,000 bags an hour. The Y-shaped passenger concourse is 1.27km (0.8 mile) long and is served by 48 moving walkways totalling 2.5km in length.
The airport has had two 3,800m (12,500ft) runways since the 26 May opening of the category IIIA-rated north runway, and can handle 35 million passengers a year, compared with Kai Tak's 28 million capacity. The managing Airport Authority (AA) says the airport has the potential to handle up to 87 million passengers a year. Earlier this year, a group of US construction industry executives named the HKIA project as one of the top 10 construction achievements of the 20th century.
The opening of the airport, on 6 July, 1998, was a disaster. Months of pre-opening trials had failed to prepare the new airport for handling its first real influx of passengers and freight.
Despite the success of the critical overnight operational move from Kai Tak, many of the new airport's systems failed catastrophically soon after operations began. Particular problems were experienced with the flight information display system and with the handling of baggage and cargo, and Chek Lap Kok's biggest cargo handling franchisee, Hong Kong Air Cargo Terminals (HACTL), diverted some of its operations back to Kai Tak until August.
Investigating the debacle
Three inquiries were held into the debacle. A government-appointed inquiry team blamed the AA and HACTL. The Legislative Council concurred with this in the conclusion to its inquiry, but also blamed the region's chief secretary, Anson Chan, and other senior government officials. The final inquiry was by Hong Kong's ombudsman, Andrew So. The government, the AA and HACTL took the flak.
So's report said the airport had not been ready to handle passengers or freight, and recommended that "roles, powers, functions and relationships" in future public projects on this scale needed to be more clearly defined. After the report release, all the parties involved formally apologised and the AA set up a working group to study and act on the three reports.
According to the AA, the airport today is "operating at its targeted, internationally accepted, customer service standards". But it has nevertheless been plagued by slower-than-expected traffic growth and airline outrage over high airport charges - now alleviated to some extent by a recent decision to lower them by 15% in the coming year.
The AA's results for the first financial year of Chek Lap Kok's operation are described as "less than satisfactory". Its consolidated net loss for the year to 31 March, 1999, was HK$338 million on a turnover of HK$3.7 billion. Operating costs for the financial year were HK$3.9 billion.
The AA attributes the year's results to the depressed state of Asia's economy following the region's 1997 financial crisis.
Chek Lap Kok handled 29.5 million passengers in its first year of operation to 5 July - just 4% more than the corresponding figure of 28.2 million for Kai Tak's last year in service. But cargo figures fared even worse, showing a 6% drop in traffic - from 1.78 million tonnes in the period from 6 July, 1997 to 5 July, 1998 down to 1.68 million tonnes in the following year.
Aircraft movements in Hong Kong were up by 2% for the same period, from 163,000 to 166,000. Figures released so far this calendar year seem to show a substantial improvement, and AA and government officials are beginning to be optimistic that the worst is over. Total passenger numbers for the first three quarters of 1999 jumped by 6.1%over the corresponding 1998 period, reaching 22.58 million.
Transfer passengers showed the biggest increase, with a 19.3%rise over the first nine months of 1998, to reach 6.05 million. Aircraft movements in the same period rose by 2.1%, to 123,890. September alone showed a 6.3% rise in passenger numbers over the previous year, at 2.36 million, but aircraft movements fell by 1.1% to 13,510 take-offs and landings.
Cargo figures for the first nine months of 1999 were also better than the previous year's. Freight handled rose by 17.9%, to 1.37 million tonnes, with loaded cargo up by 30.5%, compared with a relatively modest increase of 4.7% in unloaded cargo. The September figure shows a 25.5% increase over 1998, at 175,000t.
Although the traffic improvements must be seen bearing in mind that 1999 was an economically depressed year, they still suggest an encouraging trend that is echoed in improvements in airline traffic all over Asia.
"This year has seen a turnaround," says Arthur Ho, deputy secretary for economic services in the Hong Kong Government. "We have to monitor the situation for a longer time before we can say that the problems are over, but the signs are encouraging."
The cost of using the airport has been debated acrimoniously between authorities and airlines until recently, when the AA announced the cut in charges from 1 January. The debate is linked to the terms of the Financial Support Agreement which stipulates that AA borrowing, capped at HK$11.6 billion, must be repaid by 2001. The Hong Kong Government is also promised a 5%return on its HK$36.6 billion investment.
Until the recent charge revisions, airline representatives had complained that - after the notorious Osaka Kansai and Tokyo Narita in Japan - Hong Kong was the world's third most expensive airport. Cathay Pacific executives said landing charges were 64% higher than they had been at Kai Tak and British Airways said Hong Kong risked losing traffic unless the charges were reduced.
The cost of landing a Boeing 747 at HKIA is understood to have been about HK$44,000, compared with HK$19,000 at Bangkok and HK$9,000 at the new Kuala Lumpur International Airport. Last March, SAS withdrew services to Hong Kong, citing high landing fees and "terrible" traffic as reasons. Now, after a year of complaints, the AA has acted to appease the airlines.
AA chairman Victor Fung describes the cut as "a timely incentive to the development of aviation in Hong Kong and to the competitive and price-sensitive air freight market in particular".
The Hong Kong Government has acted to ease the AA's cost burdens. "We have reviewed charges for the AA for various services," says Ho. "We have decided not to require the AA to pay for firefighting and rescue services and so on." He says this will save the AA HK$190 million, with the charges waived from April 2000.
Ho says the government is reviewing charges for meteorological and air traffic control services, although any cuts will be subject to an analysis of safety considerations. "We have not really set a target [for a cut] because safety is always the first priority," says Ho.
HKIA suffered its first fatal accident on 22 August, 1999 when a China Airlines (CAL) Boeing MD-11 severed a wing and rolled over in flames on landing in a tropical storm, killing three of the 315 people on board. The crosswind component at the time was 26.6kt (49km/h) - exceeding the airline's 24kt limit for landings on wet runways.
Some also said windshear could have been a factor. Although there is no evidence to substantiate this, the accident focused attention on pilots' reports about the frequency of windshear encounters near the new airport. This has concentrated minds at the Hong Kong Observatory, which plans to upgrade windshear warning systems at HKIA.
Improved windshear detection
Sharon Lau, senior scientific officer at the government-run meteorological authority, says the Observatory is to buy a laser-based light detection and ranging (LIDAR) system for improved detection of windshear and turbulence in clear conditions. A working group has been set up to decide whether procedural changes are needed for passing weather information to crews in the wake of the CAL accident.
Lau says the Observatory is studying 162 windshear reports from pilots coming into HKIA since its opening. Most are cases of the phenomena not being detected by the airport's windshear and turbulence warning system (WTWS). "We have had cases of pilots reporting windshear which the system did not catch," says Lau. She adds that no such system can be expected to be 100% accurate.
As a result of the pilot reports, the Observatory is examining the use of improved software to make better use of the WTWS's remote, hill-top-mounted anemometers. The WTWS comprises a terminal Doppler weather radar (TDWR) at Tai Lam Chung, 14 anemometers and two wind profilers on Lantau Island.
Lau says the new LIDAR, which should be installed in 2001, will supplement the TDWR, which loses some of its effectiveness when there are insufficient radar-reflecting particles and droplets in the air.
So, with Chek Lap Kok's teething problems resolved, traffic improving, charges reduced and safety concerns addressed, the AA hopes the airport will settle into a more comfortable period of growth, maintaining Hong Kong as one of the most important Asia-Pacific hubs.
Source: Flight International
