‘Sense of crisis’ fuels Hong Kong airport’s bid to be competitive ‘landmark’

Hong Kong’s Airport Authority is moving ahead with the next phase of a HK$100 billion (US$12.8 billion) infrastructure expansion to turn the city’s airport into a “landmark” destination as it fuels itself with a “sense of crisis” to beat the competition, its acting CEO has said.

In an exclusive interview with the Post ahead of this Thursday’s launch of the three-runway system, Vivian Cheung Kar-fay said the Airport City project was created not only to boost Hong Kong’s competitiveness within the Greater Bay Area, but also to develop airport facilities to enhance the city’s cultural relevance.

“We need to have a sense of crisis. We all should, as operators, especially with this ever-changing political and economic environment and the mainland growing so fast, not just in the airport [sector], but in every aspect,” Cheung said, citing “peer airports” in the bay area such as Zhuhai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou.

“I won’t say that it worries me. But I have to be alert. I have to not just be alert but take action to make sure that we are not going to fall behind. So we study and monitor our peer airports.

“But right now I have to proudly say that, in fact, our peer airports so far are still using us as a benchmark for what they want to be.”

The bay area is a national plan to develop Hong Kong, Macau and nine cities in Guangdong province into an economic powerhouse, with a collective population of about 87 million.