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Exclusive | Hong Kong airport faces decade of growth pain as CEO tackles protests, recession and falling revenue
- Lam is overseeing Hong Kong’s airport expansion plan to boost passenger and cargo volume by 60-100 per cent by 2035
- Flight disruptions, safety issues and economic recession among industry challenges facing CEO of Hong Kong Airport Authority
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Five years into his job as chief executive officer of Airport Authority Hong Kong, Fred Lam is facing his gravest challenge to keep one of the world’s busiest airports humming.
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The international airport at Chek Lap Kok managed 74.7 million passengers in 2018 and handled more than 5 million tonnes of cargo, a feat that helped it land the Airport of the Year award. Lam’s mission is to grow the size to 120 million and 10 million, respectively, by 2035.
Key to that ambitious target is a plan for a third runway and a sprawling commercial development known as the SkyCity Project, which will add 4.1 million sq ft of retail and entertainment space to the aviation hub in phases between 2020 and 2027.
“Airports have become not only entities to manage the flow of passengers and cargo, they should have more functions,” Lam said in an interview. For Hong Kong International Airport, “it should be the growth engine of the city’s economy,” he said.
Lam’s stewardship of a critical infrastructure in the city’s economy at its most challenging time in a decade has been recognised with the Executive Award in this year’s DHL-SCMP Hong Kong Business Awards, which honours outstanding achievements in the local business and corporate sectors.
The years ahead can only be more demanding for the 61-year old executive. The role he took on when he assumed the hot seat in October 2014 is being severely tested. Heightened geopolitical tension, weather disruptions and flight safety issues have dogged the aviation industry. The International Air Transport Association predicts the collective profits of airline operators to be squeezed in 2019 on oil price volatility, labour costs, and weaker demand for travel.
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