Passengers, cargo traffic decline at HKIA
Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA) handled 4.1 million passengers and 320,000 metric tons of cargo in October, 1.4% and 9.2% year-on-year reductions, respectively. Air traffic movements grew 1% to 26,035.
October saw declines in visitor traffic, particularly from the Mainland, Southeast Asia, North America and Europe, while transfer/transit passengers showed a moderate increase compared to October 2007. Cargo traffic showed an across-the-board drop, with import/export figures decreasing more than 10%. Transhipment recorded a relatively mild drop.
According to Airport Authority (AA) Hong Kong Chief Executive Officer Stanley Hui, “The global financial turmoil is biting deeper into world economies, while business and trade activities are appreciably slowing down. These conditions have contributed to the continuous decline in passenger and cargo traffic that began in August.”
Given the current market environment, AA revised its traffic forecast for 2008 with marginal increases expected for passenger throughput and aircraft movements and likely negative growth for cargo traffic.
According to Mr. Hui, air cargo volume is contracting sharply.
“Global demand for Asian/mainland Chinese products have dwindled substantially because of the worsening economies of major trading partners like the U.S. and Europe,” said Mr. Hui. “As a result, trading activities between Asia and the rest of the world are rapidly slowing down, which has had an unavoidable impact on HK’s air cargo business.”
Air traffic figures for the first 10 months of 2008 recorded moderate growth over the same period in 2007. Passenger volume increased 3.2% to 40.7 million, while cargo throughput and air traffic movements grew 1.6% and 2.9% to 3.1 million metric tons and 251,720 movements, respectively.
Airline passenger growth increases by 2.6%
The combined Cathay Pacific and Dragonair traffic figures for October show passenger growth falling behind capacity growth, together with a significant decline in the amount of cargo and mail carried compared to October 2007.
Both airlines carried a total of 2,091,339 passengers — up 2.6% from the same month in 2007 but significantly behind the 11.6% growth in capacity, measured in available seat kilometers (ASKs), for the same period. The load factor for the month was down 5.3 percentage points to 75.5%. Year to date, the number of passengers carried rose 9.2% compared to a capacity rise of 14.2%.
The amount of cargo and mail carried in October dropped 7.4% to 144,466 metric tons, while the month’s capacity, measured in available cargo/mail ton-kilometers, fell 2.6% compared to the same month in 2007. The cargo and mail load factor dropped 2.9 percentage points to 65.9%. Year-to-date cargo and mail tonnage grew 2.4% compared to a capacity rise of 2.8%.
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