HKIA's passenger volume slipped 5.1% to 4.6 million

Resident travel also declined 21% y-o-y.

In a release, the Airport Authority Hong Kong (AAHK) announced that passenger volume decreased by 5.1% to 4.6 million primarily because this year's Chinese New Year falls in February whereas that in 2012 was in January.

Meanwhile, January air cargo throughput at Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA) grew by 21.2% year on year to 334,000 tonnes. The airport also registered 30,290 aircraft movements, an increase of 4.4% compared to the same month last year. 

Hong Kong resident travel dropped 21% year on year while visitor traffic grew by 2%. Transfer/ transit traffic registered a slight decrease of 1%.

On the cargo side, all major HKIA markets showed growth over January 2012, with Taiwan and North America outperforming other key regions. Imports, exports and transshipments all grew by double digits.

Stanley Hui Hon-Chung, Chief Executive Officer of AAHK, said the substantial surge in cargo throughput and the single-digit drop in passenger trips were mainly attributable to the timing impact of Chinese New Year. "It is worth noting that meaningful year-on-year comparisons can only be made with the numbers of January and February combined.

Over the Chinese New Year holidays, a total of over 600 extra flights will be arranged to various popular holiday destinations for Hong Kong residents such as Taipei, Bangkok and Seoul. We expect to see a surge in travel by Hong Kong residents over the Chinese New Year holidays in mid February.

Likewise, with most factories on the Mainland closed for the Chinese New Year holidays, air cargo is expected to decline in February over last year.

Mr Hui added that the combined traffic statistics for the first two months would be available in March.

On a rolling 12-month basis, passenger traffic rose 3.2% year on year to 56.2 million. Both cargo tonnage and aircraft movements climbed 5.2% over the same period to 4.1 million tonnes and 352,950 respectively.