Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA) registered a year-on-year increase of 7.7% to 5.4m passengers in July, surpassing the previous record of 5.2m set in August 2012.

 

Flight movements reached 32,120 – up 7.5% compared to the same month last year – beating the previous record set in May 2013. Cargo volume was 341,000 tonnes, growing by 1.9% compared to the same month last year.

 

The growth in passenger traffic in July was mainly driven by Hong Kong resident traffic, which registered an increase of 14% over the same month last year. Passenger traffic to and from Mainland China and South East Asia outperformed other key regions.

 

Stanley Hui Hon-chung, Chief Executive Officer of Airport Authority Hong Kong, said: “It is encouraging to see HKIA achieving new records in monthly passenger volume and flight movements. Meanwhile, SkyPier has also set a new daily record on 8 August with 11,663 passengers.

 

“It showed that an increasing number of passengers has chosen our ferry services to travel between HKIA and the ports throughout the Pearl River Delta region, and that our combined air-sea transport services are enhancing HKIA’s competitiveness as a hub airport.

 

“In July, HKIA’s extensive flight destination network was further expanded with the launch of a twice-weekly service to Ordos, Inner Mongolia by Air China.  A thrice-weekly Hong Kong-Tainan service was also introduced by China Airlines, providing more convenient travel to the Tainan and Chiayi regions of Taiwan,” Hui added.

 

Over the first seven months of 2013, passenger traffic registered a year-on-year increase of 5.2% to 34.3m. Flight movements increased by 5.5% to 212,790 over the same period last year.

 

On a rolling 12-month basis, HKIA handled 58.2m passenger trips, 4.1m tonnes of cargo and 362,685 aircraft movements, representing year-on-year growth of 4.4%, 3.5% and 5.4%, respectively.