The authority managing Hong Kong's international airport is doing all it can to coax overseas airlines and seek new routes to fill the extra capacity created by the soon-to-debut three-runway system while waiting for city flag carrier Cathay Pacific Airways to fully restore its pre-pandemic passenger capacity.
In an exclusive interview with the South China Morning Post, the Airport Authority's acting CEO, Vivian Cheung Kar-fay, said it had taken a spate of proactive actions "beyond what an airport would do", including offering financial incentives to airlines to increase and create routes, giving away free air tickets to attract tourists, and organising high-profile conferences to draw business travellers.
Hong Kong International Airport's HK$141.5 billion three-runway system will debut on Thursday and will add in stages 50% in passenger capacity to 120 million annually.
It will double the cargo capacity from 5 million tonnes now to 10 million tonnes per annum by around 2035.
Cathay, meanwhile, delayed its target of returning to pre-pandemic passenger levels by three months from the end of this year to the first quarter of 2025.
"I'm still expecting that, hoping there is no revised plan because a large part of our plan depends on their plan," Cheung said.
"They have 50% of our market share … so they affect us."
In an earlier interview, Secretary for Transport and Logistics Lam Sai-hung told the South China Morning Post that Hong Kong would not solely rely on Cathay, and would press ahead with plans to invite airlines to run more services and to cement the city's aviation hub status.
Cheung said the authority had sent outreach teams to lobby various governments for air service agreements, while introducing an airline incentive programme to motivate foreign carriers to come earlier.
"We are not just sending a simple letter or email out saying they will have this incentive. Our staff, my colleagues, also sometimes even fly out to see them, to introduce to them how to utilise this package," she said.
"And we even help airlines to identify worthwhile destinations. And the result is pretty good."
The scheme, introduced in June, provides up to HK$7 million annually for airlines that run new daily routes for two years and long-haul ones for three years.
For new routes, airlines can earn HK$10,000 to HK$20,000 per tonne of an aircraft's maximum take-off weight per trip in the first year, with the figure halving in the second.
The three-year scheme offers the same incentive per take-off and landing in the first year, decreasing to 75% in the second year and half in the third, aiming to boost long-haul carriers to Europe and the United States.
"I won't say that the incentive we give them will be enough to turn around their decision, but it definitely gives them incentives, to attract them, to make a good decision to come to Hong Kong," Cheung said. "And we do see that result."
Airlines accepting the incentives must operate a route to a destination for 20 straight weeks.
As of October, 26 airlines serving 52 destinations were eligible and provided 238 flights per week.
Cheung said three Hong Kong-based airlines had added flights and new destinations.
Cathay's budget arm, HK Express, introduced 10 new routes, including Penang in Malaysia and Shizuoka in Japan, this year.
The city's youngest carrier, Greater Bay Airlines, expanded its destinations to include Japan's Yonago and mainland China's Zhoushan and Huangshan, while Hong Kong Airlines last month inaugurated a direct service to Chiang Mai in northern Thailand and would return to North America early next year by resuming its Vancouver route.
This is despite geopolitics hindering some overseas airlines from returning to Hong Kong as their long-haul flights went through Russian airspace.
"That's beyond our control, really beyond everyone's control," Cheung said. "This does not only affect us, but many other nearby countries."
Cheung said the authority was doing something an airport normally did not do - bringing in visitors.
For example, the authority gave away 500,000 tickets as part of the "Hello Hong Kong" campaign in 2022. The move garnered attention worldwide with media coverage in 80 languages and reaching an audience of 3 billion, including Argentina and Croatia, which the free flights did not cover.
"We are not a traditional airport any more. A traditional airport doesn't go out to recruit tourists and go around the world to welcome everyone, but we did that," Cheung said.
The authority also went all out to get conferences to bring in business travellers.
"We started to bid for conferences. If we cannot attract the conference we want, we create one," Cheung said.
One such event was the inaugural three-day Super Terminal Expo earlier this month, which drew leaders from 60 airports and related authorities around the world to look at future trends of air passenger and freight hubs.
A global air freight summit, the IATA World Cargo Symposium 2024, was held for the first time in Hong Kong in March.
In 2025, the authority will host World Routes 2025, a major global aviation convention, in Hong Kong following its winning bid.
"This is very important for all airlines. So all the airline decision makers will be coming to Hong Kong next year," Cheung said.
She noted there was a global misconception about Hong Kong, often based on comparisons with its pre-Covid status.
"So we want to change that. And what's the best way to have people come here, participate in a conference and see [for] themselves," she said.
