HUGE cuts will be made in the number of staff working in the Airport Authority's project division over the next 18 months as the construction of the new airport nears completion.
About 1,400 engineers, technicians and other staff at Chek Lap Kok - nearly 90 per cent of the workforce - will leave, according to a confidential memo seen by the Sunday Morning Post.
The notice, written on Friday by project director Douglas Oakervee, shows most people will go between November and August 1998 when about 800 people will either have their contracts terminated or not renewed.
Four hundred will go between March and May 1998.
This corresponds with the planned completion and opening of the airport next April.
There will be another sharp slide between August and November 1998 when a further 500 people will leave.
By this time the second runway and northwest passenger terminal extension should be substantially finished, if not operational.
