Hong Kong International Airport has unveiled a HK$7 billion expansion plan that includes the first phase of a midfield concourse that will boost handling capacity by 10 million passengers a year when completed in 2015.
The midfield concourse will be a separate building west of the main Terminal 1, on the other side of the air traffic control towers. It will be linked by an extension of the existing underground 'people mover' beneath the main terminal. The building site is the last piece of airport land available for large-scale development.
The project will also include a new cross-field aircraft taxiway.
Construction of the midfield concourse is seen as buying time before the airport reaches its maximum capacity and construction of a third runway is completed. The north and south runways will reach their maximum capacity of 68 aircraft movements per hour by 2015, up from 60 per hour at present.
'The midfield development project, together with our long-term development blueprint, Master Plan 2030, will become the most important corporate projects of the Airport Authority,' the authority's chairman Marvin Cheung Kin-tung said.
The new concourse project follows HK$4.5 billion of improvements that began in 2006, which included reconfiguring the immigration halls and doubling the size of the baggage handling system.
Eleven of the 20 aircraft parking stands at the midfield concourse will be served with air bridges to the planes. Three of these will be wide enough to serve double-decker Airbus A380s. The remaining nine stands will be mixed operational stands for passenger aircraft and freighters.
