THE Provisional Airport Authority (PAA) and international airlines will start negotiation next year on aircraft landing fees at the new airport at Chek Lap Kok.
PAA chief executive, Dr Hank Townsend, promised the fees would be 'reasonable' and not as high as those at Japan's new Kansai airport.
'They [fees] will be under serious consultation about a year before the airport opens, but informal negotiations will start next year when we sit down with the airlines,' he said at an international airport conference yesterday.
He is confident Hong Kong would remain 'the dominant centre for international traffic' even though new or expanding airports at Shenzhen, Macau, Zhuhai and Guangzhou would handle 46 million passengers a year by 2010.
An even more optimistic view was held by John Meredity, executive director of the Air Transport Action Group, who said the Asia-Pacific region would handle 51 per cent of the world's air traffic by 2010.
'Asia-Pacific will contribute US$900 million (about HK$7 billion) in economic output and create 15 million jobs,' he said.