{"id":424715,"date":"2024-11-29T03:35:55","date_gmt":"2024-11-29T03:35:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=424715"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-29T14:00:00","slug":"Hong-Kong-airport-third-runway-takes-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/Hong-Kong-airport-third-runway-takes-off\/","title":{"rendered":"Hong Kong airport third runway takes off"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hong Kong started flight operations on its third runway on Thursday, with officials saying it will keep the city’s airport competitive as an aviation hub despite its lagging post-pandemic recovery.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hong Kong International Airport is still among the busiest airports in the world, but flights are not yet back to pre-Covid levels and it has fallen behind regional rivals like Singapore and South Korea in passenger traffic.<\/p>\n

Speaking at a ceremony near the tarmac, Hong Kong leader John Lee said the airport’s “capacity will be significantly increased” by the new runway.<\/p>\n

It will enable the airport to handle 120 million passengers and 10 million tonnes of cargo annually by 2035, authorities say.<\/p>\n

Eight years after construction began on the third runway, guests at the commissioning ceremony watched a plane take off into a clear blue sky.<\/p>\n

The project that cost HK$142 billion ($18 billion) drew controversy for its environmental impact, as well as attracting headlines for labour disputes and a corruption case involving subcontractors.<\/p>\n

Observers have questioned whether the boosted capacity can be taken full advantage of, with visitor arrivals still below pre-pandemic levels.<\/p>\n

Hong Kong carrier Cathay Pacific said this week that it will reach 100 percent of pre-pandemic flights in January.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lee said Thursday that the upgraded airport will help Hong Kong improve ties to surrounding Chinese cities, as part of Beijing’s development blueprint for the region.<\/p>\n

It will take until the end of 2025 for some of the expanded passenger buildings associated with the third runway to enter service.<\/p>\n

hol\/reb\/rsc<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Hong Kong International Airport is still among the busiest airports in the world, but flights are not yet back to pre-Covid levels<\/p>\n

-Peter PARKS
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Hong Kong started flight operations on its third runway on Thursday, with officials saying it…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23812],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-424715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=424715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424715\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=424715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=424715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}