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Following is the speech by the Secretary for Transport and Housing, Professor Anthony Cheung Bing-leung, at the Technovation Conference and Exhibition organised by the Airport Authority Hong Kong today (September 15):
Fred (Lam), distinguished speakers, friends of the airport community, ladies and gentlemen,
Good afternoon, it's my great pleasure to attend this afternoon's kick-off ceremony for the Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA) Technovation Conference and Exhibition. Just before this ceremony, I was given the honour and opportunity to look at some of the latest creative applications of IT, that will make our airport even more customer-friendly. It's really an eye-opening experience.
Hong Kong International Airport, or HKIA in short, is one of the leading and busiest airports in the world. Last year, it served 63.3 million passengers, handled 4.38 million tonnes of cargo, and accommodated 391 000 air traffic movements, at a daily rate of about 1 100 flights.
This makes HKIA the world's busiest cargo airport and third busiest international passenger airport - after Dubai and London Heathrow.
HKIA is at one of the world's most strategic geographical locations. From Hong Kong, one can reach half of the world's population within five hours' flight time. Coupled with the extensive air network , we are talking about 180 destinations worldwide, including over 45 on the Mainland of China, Hong Kong enjoys a level of global and regional connectivity much envied by many other cities.
With such an outstanding performance, HKIA is not merely a significant transport infrastructure that helps drive Hong Kong's economic growth and regional exchange and integration. As a major international aviation hub it has become an important icon articulating Hong Kong's globalness. All this achievement is in no small part the result of incessant efforts from the Airport Authority and other partners of our airport community, whom I salute.
HKIA's growth has to be sustained in order to keep up with the ever-growing air traffic demands, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region. Our airport is expected to reach full capacity within the coming one to two years. That's why the Airport Authority, with the support of the Government, is actively taking forward the plan for a three runway system (3RS).
The 3RS is far more than just building an additional runway. The whole project includes six core projects and facilities and requires reclamation of 650 hectares of land north of the existing airport, half the size of the current airport island. It comprises the construction of a 3 800-metre-long third runway, a third runway concourse with 57 parking positions, expansion and modification of the existing Terminal 2 into a full-service processing terminal, as well as a new automated people mover system and a new baggage handling system linking Terminal 2 with the new concourse.
Upon completion of the project, HKIA will have the capacity to handle around 100 million passengers and about 9 million tonnes of cargo annually by 2030.
The Airport Authority is committed to developing HKIA into one of the world's greenest airports, with a lot of practical green features incorporated in the design of the 3RS and the use of environmentally friendly construction methods. Also, and this is important for this conference, the 3RS will accommodate the application of the latest Information and Communication Technology (ICT).
I will turn now to the theme of this conference, Technovation. The current term Government has the vision to build Hong Kong into a smart city. In his 2015 Policy Address, the Chief Executive emphasised the importance of providing a strategic environment for innovation and technology development.
Our future smart city will leverage on the ICT infrastructure and use of innovative solutions to address issues related to governance, the economy, service delivery, housing, mobility, environment, health and so on, thereby enhancing the quality of life of our citizens and strengthening our city's overall competitiveness.
Against this background, it is delightful to see increasing efforts and investment being put into ICT by the Airport Authority and the airport community at large, especially in the exploration of creative solutions to many operational issues, making things possible, which were not possible previously, as marked by today's event and its future event.
HKIA has an impressive record of applying technology to enhance its service. It is the first airport to adopt the RFID baggage tracking technology. Today's exhibition also centres on the theme of object tracking, both for passengers and cargo. HKIA's mobile app "My Flight" can not only be customised to passenger's flight needs, but can also show real-time availability of parking spaces in the airport island. The Airport Authority has also recently set up the Airport Technology Advisory Council to provide further impetus to its work, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank many experts from different fields who have agreed to serve this Council to offer their advice to the Airport Authority.
The Government supports the Airport Authority's efforts to develop HKIA into a "smart airport" through the application of intelligent data, operation and automated passenger processing technology, so that HKIA can become more efficient, less labour-dependent, and can provide an even better travel experience for our passengers.
On the part of Government, we are investing $1.4 billion into a new air traffic control system, which is now at its final installation stage, and is expected to be commissioned by the middle of next year. This new system will be equipped with state-of-the-art air traffic management features and capabilities on a par with the most advanced systems of its kind globally. Specifically, the new system can process 8 000 flight plans per day and monitor 1 500 air or ground targets simultaneously, representing five times and 1.5 times respectively of the existing processing capacity.
By developing into a smart airport, HKIA itself can also become an incubating platform for the local technology industry to explore new ideas and innovative solutions using ICT.
Be green, be smart, be customer-friendly, particularly to our passengers. These are features to be incorporated into the 3RS that will certainly add further pride to HKIA. As Fred, Chief Executive Officer of Airport Authority Hong Kong just said, we are most happy to see our airport becoming foremost pioneers in terms of the application of IT. On that note, we look forward to the illuminating expert presentation and panel discussion. Thank you very much.
Ends/Tuesday, September 15, 2015
Issued at HKT 18:57
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