Hong Kong International Airport, which handles the largest volume of air cargo in the Greater Bay Area , continues to bank on its key strengths to win new investments from global logistics firms amid challenges from surrounding airports. The city operates the most number of scheduled flights to the widest international destinations, making it the preferred choice for companies like DHL Express. Faster customs clearance and higher flight frequencies will help the city maintain its role as the regional aviation hub, according to FreightAmigo Services. “It’s a mixture of flight optionality, centrality, weather,” John Pearson, chief executive officer at DHL Express, said in an interview, justifying its decision to make Hong Kong the Asia-Pacific hub of its fast-delivery business . “The expansion in Hong Kong hub is just literally more belts, more tech, and greater operating footprint to handle volumes.” Hong Kong connects flights to 117 international destinations as of December 16, topping all airports in the bay area. The city recorded 29,698 international passenger flights this year through December 16, almost triple its nearest competitor Guangzhou, and more than Macau and Shenzhen combined, according to data compiled by aviation analytics company Cirium. The city’s position, however, is increasingly being tested by a handful of airports within the bay area that are growing by leaps and bounds, as China’s economy rebounded from the coronavirus-induced slump in March. A new operator is also preparing to compete in the bay area. Shenzhen airport, for example, has seen rapid gains in flight connectivity since 2017, after the central government designated it as an international aviation hub. Its international reach surged by 68 per cent, 24 per cent, and 29 per cent in 2017, 2018 and 2019, according to Cirium. Hong Kong recorded a corresponding 2 per cent and 7 per cent gain in 2017 and 2018, before a drop of 3 per cent last year. That was also part of the reason Airport Authority decided to increase its 55 per cent stake in the neighbouring Zhuhai airport earlier this month to safeguard its connection to the bay area, the city’s airport operator said. Hong Kong and Shenzhen are both building their third runways, costing HK$144 billion (US$18.6 billion) and 12.3 billion yuan (US$1.9 billion), respectively. “Hong Kong has some client resources and route network that Shenzhen and Guangzhou do not have,” said Qi Qi, an associate professor at Guangzhou Civil Aviation College. But the pandemic has accelerated some changes and could level the playing field, he added. “If the supply chains cannot deliver their goods via Hong Kong, new habits will form,” he said. “Once this sets for a year or two, companies may choose some other channels and that habit will be hard to reverse.” FreightAmigo Services, a freight forwarder based in Hong Kong that covers more than 230 countries for clients such as Apple supplier Foxconn, is confident Hong Kong and bay area airports will have complementary roles in the region. Its clients’ needs in recent years have not tilted to any specific airport, but became more dynamic with greater choices, said Tyrell Au, the general manager at the firm. “Our clients have diverse needs, their choices of particular airport are quite practical, depending on the punctuality of flights, actual take-off time or factors such as whether the custom clearing is convenient,” he added. Meanwhile, DHL is expanding in Hong Kong, having chosen it with Leipzig in Germany and Cincinnati in the US as the group’s three global processing hubs. A HK$4.5 billion investment, when completed in 2022, will raise its annual handling capacity to 125,000 pieces of shipments per hour or a total of throughput of 1.06 million tonnes. “Hong Kong is a very central trading point to set itself up, like Amsterdam and some other cities and airports as a high inflow, high outflow aviation centre,” Pearson added. “So it’s very satisfactory in that sense, we continue to build upon that.”