The Airport Authority has begun the second phase of a study on a third runway, as the existing two are likely to reach maximum capacity by 2015.
'We are very serious about the third runway and realise that it is very important to Hong Kong,' Stanley Hui Hon-chung, the authority's chief executive officer, said.
Speaking at a press conference for the Asian Aerospace 2009 international expo and congress, he said it would take two years to complete the environmental impact and technology feasibility study on a third runway. The second-phase study comes after Cathay Pacific Airways chief executive Tony Tyler said in February that Hong Kong needed a third runway to maintain its role as an international air hub.
A first-phase study, completed in the first quarter of this year, concluded that the combined maximum capacity of the two runways was 68 aircraft movements an hour, sources familiar with the study said. Financial Secretary John Tsang Chun-wah said in his budget speech on February 27 this capacity would be reached in 2015.
Runway capacity will grow at about 3 per cent a year until 2015, while aircraft movements have increased by an average of 5 per cent in recent years.
In the second phase of study, an Airport Authority-appointed consultant will consider the best sites for a third runway and assess capacity.