Editorial | Hong Kong airport must meet the challenges of regional competition
- With consultation and coordination, its operations and role and those of the Greater Bay Area’s other airports can be better defined. But to keep its position as an aviation hub, Hong Kong needs to maintain a competitive edge
Rapid development in the “Greater Bay Area” means there has to be a constant upgrading of infrastructure. The central government’s approval of expansion plans that include a third runway for Shenzhen’s airport should therefore not come as a surprise.
But for Hong Kong, also working on increasing its airport capacity and counting on being the region’s aviation hub for international travel, such competition could be perceived as unwelcome. It should not be viewed in such a way; instead, there should be coordination and cooperation with the goal of regional benefit.
Hong Kong’s international airport has been so dominant for so long that the idea of competition is inconceivable to some citizens. Latest rankings place it as the eighth busiest in the world for passenger volume and first for cargo, and the British consultancy Skytrax put it fifth in its annual “world’s best” list.
But Guangzhou’s Baiyan International Airport has been fast rising in passenger numbers and is now the 13th busiest internationally; a new terminal was opened last year and expansion plans call for two runways to be added to the existing three.
To learn that just 39km (24 miles) away in Shenzhen, Bao’an International Airport has similar ideas is disconcerting. That is especially so given that Beijing’s Greater Bay Area blueprint to link Hong Kong, Macau and nine Guangdong cities to create an economic powerhouse envisages Hong Kong being the region’s international aviation hub.
