HKIA gets green light for third runway
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Hong Kong International Airport will move forward with plans to develop a third runway, after the project was officially approved by Hong Kong‘s Executive Council this week.
The new runway will be developed on 650 hectares of reclaimed land and will also feature new taxiways and aprons, a third runway concourse, an expanded Terminal 2, an automated people mover connecting to the main terminal, and a baggage handling system.
Costing HK$141.5 billion (US$18.2bn) to develop, construction will commence in 2016 and is expected to be completed by 2023.
Hong Kong’s Airport Authority (AA) said it welcomed the Executive Council’s decision.
“Expanding HKIA into a three-runway system provides obvious benefits. It will consolidate our city’s status as an international and regional aviation hub, spur economic development and create hundreds of thousands of jobs. This is a project for Hong Kong, and we are committed to taking it forward,” said Vincent Lo Hong-sui, chairman of the AA.
Cathay Pacific‘s chief executive, Ivan Chu, added that the third runway “is the only viable way for our airport to keep pace with future growth”.
The third runway forms part of a major expansion plan for HKIA. Late last year the airport completed construction work on a new 105,000m², five-level Midfield Concourse, which is expected to become operational by the end of 2015. Once the third runway is completed, the airport will be able to handle an extra 30 million passengers per year.
An earlier environmental assessment for the third runway cleared the project, on the condition that a 2,400-hectare marine park was created in the Pearl River Delta to protect local wildlife.
Last year HKIA handled more than 60m passengers for the first time in its history, and the airport has already broken its daily traffic records in the opening months of 2015.
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