Airport Authority Hong Kong (AA) today released Hong Kong International Airport’s (HKIA) traffic statistics for March 2021. During the month, HKIA handled 58,000 passengers and 10,620 flights, marking year-on-year decreases of 89.9% and 12.5%, respectively. Cargo throughput saw a year-on-year increase of 4.9% to 397,000 tonnes.
Passenger traffic remained weak in March as the COVID-19 pandemic continued. Passenger traffic decreased significantly compared to the same month last year in all categories, namely Hong Kong residents, visitors, and transfer/ transit passengers.
The growth in cargo volume last month was mainly attributed to double-digit growth in imports. Despite a decline in transshipments due to a shortage of belly capacity on passenger flights, the overall cargo throughput saw an increase during the month, most significantly in the traffic to and from the Middle East, Southeast Asia and Taiwan.
Over the first three months of the year, HKIA handled 176,000 passengers and 30,475 flights, representing year-on-year decreases of 97.8% and 51.9%, respectively; meanwhile cargo handled during the period rose 13% to 1.1 million tonnes.
On a 12-month rolling basis, passenger and cargo traffic fell 98.6% and 2.0% to 835,000 and 4.6 million tonnes, respectively. Aircraft movements dropped 66.2% to 127,760 over the period.
In March, the AA has jointly completed a pilot project on IATA’s ONE Record digital initiative with Cathay Pacific Cargo and other members of Hong Kong’s air cargo community, with an aim to enable more efficient and accurate air cargo handling through digitalisation. In this pilot, shipment content and status from various sources are exchanged using ONE Record models and protocols, through which a single trusted view among multiple stakeholders can be enabled. In this pilot, AA made use of its newly developed cargo community platform, which is in compliance with ONE Record standard.
Cissy Chan, executive director, commercial of the AA said: “We pursue digitalisation in our operations to sustain our market competitiveness as aligned to the future of business. As a smart airport, HKIA is proactively driving various innovative and technology-based initiatives for the cargo community. Through such digital collaboration, we are driving Hong Kong’s air cargo industry to enter a new frontier.”
