HONG KONG – Passenger throughput at Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA) reached 3.5 million passenger trips in September, 3.5 percent below the same period in 2008
The fall in passenger volume was largely due to weak visitor traffic, particularly from markets like Taiwan and North America.
Transfer/ transit passengers also dropped 11 percent year on year, which was mainly the result of declining traffic from the Mainland and Taiwan markets.
Travel made by Hong Kong residents, however, recorded year-on-year growth of nine percent.
Stanley Hui, CEO of Airport Authority Hong Kong, said the mild year-on-year reductions indicated that contractions continue to narrow.
He said, “Comparing year-on-year movements on a quarterly basis, decline in passenger volume has reduced from Q1’s 7.1 percent to Q3’s 3.5 percent.
It should be noted that air traffic figures of Q3 of 2008 were comparatively lower as global economic downturn started to affect air traffic worldwide.
HKIA handled some 34.2 million passenger trips between January and September this year, representing year-on-year decreases of 6.6 percent.
