HKIA passengers, cargo, flight movements grow across first two months of 2013

Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA) announced today that it handled 4.7 million of passengers in February, representing 14.5% growth over the same period last year. Cargo volume dropped by 13.3% to 248,000 tonnes, while flight movements increased by 4.1% to 27,665.

Combining the first two months of 2013 would even out the timing difference of the Chinese New Year. HKIA served 9.3 million passengers and handled 582,000 tonnes of cargo in January and February, representing 3.8% and 3.6% growth respectively year on year. Flight movements grew 4.2% to 57,955.

The overall growth of passenger volume in January and February was mainly driven by visitor traffic, which registered growth of 5% over the same period last year. Passenger traffic to/ from South East Asia, the Mainland and Taiwan performed particularly well.

The overall growth of cargo throughput for the first two months was mainly attributed to an 11% year-on-year increase in transshipments. Cargo throughput to/ from Taiwan and North America outperformed other key regions.

Stanley Hui Hon-chung, Chief Executive Officer of Airport Authority Hong Kong, said, “It is encouraging to see solid and healthy traffic growth in all three categories at the beginning of 2013. Preliminary figures show that on 16 February, during the Chinese New Year peak travel period, we handled a record-breaking daily flow of more than 198,000 passengers. Processing such a high number of passengers presents considerable operational challenges, yet as always, HKIA and its business partners worked hard to deliver the highest level of customer service and provide travellers with a delightful airport experience.

“Cargo recorded slower tonnage in February due to the closure of Mainland factories during the holiday period. We expect that cargo will gradually stabilise in the coming months as factories resume operations and we remain cautiously optimistic for the cargo growth in longer run.” Mr Hui added.

On a rolling 12-month basis, passenger volume reached 56.8 million, registering a 4.2% year-on-year increase. Cargo increased by 3.1% to 4.05 million tonnes, while flight movements increased by 4.8% to 354,035 over the same period last year.

Download the traffic statistics >>