HKIA sets new monthly traffic record

Passenger traffic rose 7.7% to 5.4 million in July.

The Hong Kong International Airport said the July total exceeded the previous record of 5.2 million set in August 2012. Flight movements reached 32,120, up 7.5% year-on-year and beating the previous record set in May 2013. The airport’s SkyPier ferry terminal also set a new daily record on August 8, with 11,663 passengers.

Airport officials said the growth in passenger traffic was driven by Hong Kong resident traffic that grew 14% while demand for routes to and from mainland China and Southeast Asia also rose.

“It is encouraging to see HKIA achieving new records in monthly passenger volume and flight movements,” said Hong Kong Airport Authority CEO Stanley Hui Hon-chung.

He noted that HKIA’s extensive flight destination network was further expanded with the launch of a twice-weekly service to Ordos, Inner Mongolia by Air China in July. A thrice-weekly Hong Kong-Tainan service was also introduced by China Airlines, providing more convenient travel to the Tainan and Chiayi regions of Taiwan.

For the first seven months of 2013, passenger traffic increased 5.2% to 34.3 million while flight movements increased by 5.5% to 212,790.