Third Hong Kong airport runway to come with smaller facilities

Parking space and floor area are almost halved in latest design, but bosses insists expansion can still serve 30 million more travellers a year

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The new single-Y design for the third runway.Photo: David Wong

Published: 12:30am, 20 Mar 2015Updated: 10:07am, 20 Mar 2015

More questions are being raised over the Airport Authority's HK$141.5 billion third runway - this time over the design, in which the number of aircraft parking slots and the floor area of a new concourse are slashed by almost half.

The revisions raise doubts about whether the expanded Chek Lap Kok airport can still serve 30 million more passengers a year, a projection made based on the old design.

According to the authority's announcement on Tuesday, the concourse will now be "Y-shaped", covering about 283,000 square metres and providing 57 plane parking spaces.

That contrasted with the original design, with two connected "Y"s yielding a floor area of 470,000 square metres and 106 parking spaces.

Green Sense president Roy Tam Hoi-pong said that if the airport's extra handling capacity turned out to be lower than 30 million travellers, the authority might need more than HK41.5 billion to complete the works. Photo: Reuters

The authority did not point out during the announcement that the design had changed, although it did present pictures of the latest plans.

"We can still meet the target under this design," a spokesman for the authority said yesterday.

Third Hong Kong airport runway to come with smaller facilities

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Parking space and floor area are almost halved in latest design, but bosses insists expansion can still serve 30 million more travellers a year

Parking space and floor area are almost halved in latest design, but bosses insists expansion can still serve 30 million more travellers a year