Hong Kong transport secretary promises solutions to aviation manpower shortage as industry calls for urgent remedies
- Secretary for Transport and Logistics Lam Sai-hung aims to introduce unveil proposals before middle of year
- City recorded 4.41 million visitors during first three months of 2023, which was still only about 30 per cent of quarterly average before pandemic struck
Authorities aim to introduce solutions to the manpower shortage in Hong Kong’s aviation sector before the middle of the year, the transport minister has said, as he acknowledged the city’s competitiveness will be harmed if the industry does not return to pre-pandemic numbers of flights and destinations.
Secretary for Transport and Logistics Lam Sai-hung on Friday also said connections with the outside world were vital for the city’s return to normality after industry representatives called for urgent remedies to fill vacancies in the sector a day ago.
He said the study on manpower conducted by the Airport Authority had reached the final stage, and officials were considering relevant solutions.
“We hope to introduce plans before the middle of the year at the latest to at least partially solve the manpower shortage,” Lam said at a special Legislative Council Finance Committee meeting.
He said the number of people passing through the city’s airport had recovered steadily after Hong Kong reopened its borders. He noted that the airport’s passenger traffic and flight volume had recovered to about 45 per cent and 55 per cent, respectively, of pre-pandemic levels at the end of last month.
Industry representatives earlier called for urgent solutions to the severe labour shortage in the sector, where almost 100,000 vacancies were estimated to be available. They suggested recruiting foreign or mainland Chinese workers as a short-term measure to cope with the problem.
The city’s aviation and tourism sectors were hard hit by the government’s stringent Covid-19 pandemic measures before authorities began lifting restrictions last December.
Statistics released by the Tourism Board on Friday showed the city recorded 4.41 million visitors during the first three months of the year, which was still only about 30 per cent of the average quarterly number before the pandemic struck.
The number of visitors reached 2.45 million in March, up from 1.46 million in February and about 500,000 in January.
Meanwhile, Lam defended the government’s plan to set up a new coordination office under the Highways Department to oversee Northern Metropolis railway projects, saying the new unit would facilitate the development, which involved complex cross-border planning.
Proposed by former chief executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor in 2021, the Northern Metropolis aims to turn parts of the New Territories near the border into an economic and residential hub. The blueprint calls for creating up to 650,000 jobs and building more than 900,000 flats for about 2.5 million people.
Meanwhile, in response to lawmakers’ criticism of the recent fare increases proposed by ferry and minibus operators, secretary Lam said authorities would examine various factors, such as the overall financial situation, passenger flows and ability of residents to absorb the increase when weighing the applications.
He added authorities and ferry operators were studying ways to increase their non-ticket revenue, including providing value-added services, such as convenience stores and express lockers to the facilities at piers.
Authorities revealed this week that they were vetting applications by three major ferry operators to raise ticket prices by 22.2 per cent to 100 per cent, which will affect residents taking ferries from the outlying islands of Lamma and Peng Chau the most if approved.
