Cathay’s Tyler says Hong Kong runway capacity running out

Cathay’s Tyler says Hong Kong runway capacity running out Cathay Pacific chief Tony Tyler said Tuesday that Hong Kong, as an aviation hub, “has to face a number of difficult challenges if we are to maintain our leading edge in this region and beyond.”
   Speaking at the Hong Kong Management Association’s annual conference, Tyler said air freight generates barely more than 1 percent by volume of Hong Kong's external trade, but more than 34 percent by value, with the aviation industry as a whole contributing 9 percent to Hong Kong’s GDP.
   Tyler said the primary challenges facing Hong Kong International Airport, Cathay’s base of operations, is dwindling slot capacity and lack of fifth freedom in other markets.
   “HKIA at present does not have sufficient runway slot capacity,” he said. “This situation is exacerbated by limitations arising from the airspace design over the Pearl River Delta region, which prohibits the use of parallel arrivals and departures on both runways. Cathay Pacific has been working closely with the airport authority and Civil Aviation Department in Hong Kong together with IATA and mainland authorities to address these issues. Already, the mainland authorities have taken the initiative to straighten out two important routes to Europe.”
   Officials in the administrative region are pondering whether to build a third runway at HKIA, or whether to utilize capacity at other PRD airports, like Shenzhen.
   “On the ground, we welcome CAD's plan to gradually increase movements on the existing two runways at HKIA to 68 per hour by 2015,” Tyler said. “This is a significant improvement on the current 55 movements per hour but still falls short of what is needed in the long term. Previous estimates stated that at 6 percent growth per annum, HKIA would be fully slot constrained throughout the day by 2013, even with the airspace issues fully resolved.”
   About air liberalization, Tyler said Hong Kong should use fifth freedom rights to augment its own volume down the line.
   “We believe it is critical for the well being and sustainability of the hub that liberalization is pursued carefully as well as progressively,” he said. “Air traffic rights are negotiated between governments on the basis of freedoms of the air. One of the most prized of these is the so-called fifth freedom — the right of an airline to pick up passengers (or cargo) from one foreign territory and fly them to another foreign territory. They are the ace up every negotiator's sleeve. So it is critical that we don’t trade away these precious fifth freedom rights for anything less than equal value. Let alone giving them away for nothing.
   “Foreign carriers have no commitment to Hong Kong — why should they? They just want to cherry pick the best of our fifth freedom rights to serve what they see as honey pot routes. Nor do foreign carriers have any interest in using such rights to add secondary routes to our hub. Their interests are in their own hubs, not ours. The bottom line is that fifth freedom rights are our most effective currency of negotiation in bilateral trade negotiations. In the interests of preserving and growing Hong Kong’s hub, we must be careful how they are traded, particularly at this difficult time.” ' Eric Johnson