HKIA Sets New Daily Passenger Volume Record in March 2013

Hong Kong International Airport set new single-day records of approximately 200,000 passengers and 1,172 aircraft movements on 29 March, the first day of the Easter holiday, and saw passenger trips and flight movements grow significantly during the month.

Passenger volume increased by 8% to 5 million and aircraft movements rose by 3.2% to 30,540 compared with March 2012, while cargo throughput decreased slightly by 2.2% to 360,000 tonnes.

The growth in passenger traffic in March was mainly driven by Hong Kong resident traffic, which registered an increase of 18% over the same month last year. Passenger traffic to/from South East Asia and Mainland China outperformed other key regions.

The decline in cargo throughput last month was mainly attributed to the 7% year-on-year drop in exports. Imports recorded a slight decline while transshipments registered a 7% increase compared to the same month last year.

"The first quarter of 2013 ended with record-breaking traffic figures, and the fact that the airport broke its single-day record for passengers twice in two months is especially noteworthy. HKIA also welcomed Air Seychelles which inaugurated services three times a week from Mahe to Hong Kong via Abu Dhabi using A330-200 last month. Air Seychelles is the 107th airlines to serve HKIA," said Stanley Hui Hon-chung, Chief Executive Officer of Airport Authority Hong Kong (AAHK). "With the declared runway capacity of HKIA further increased to 64 flights per hour in the Summer Schedule, the average number of daily scheduled flights has reached 1,037. This level of activity is inevitably going to pose challenges particularly in respect of parking stands, but together with our business partners, we will continue to operate according to the highest safety standards and deliver world-class service for all our travellers."

In the first quarter of 2013, passenger traffic registered year-on-year growth of 5.2% to 14.3 million. Cargo volume increased 1.3% to 942,000 tonnes, while flight movements rose 3.9% to 88,495.

On a rolling 12-month basis, the airport handled a total of 57.2 million passengers, 4.04 million tonnes of cargo and 354,980 aircraft movements, representing yearly increases of 4.1%, 2.9% and 4.7% respectively.