A group of academics from Hong Kong and Guangdong attended the HKIA Aviation Outlook Roundtable in April where views were shared on the outlook of and challenges facing the aviation industry.

Speaking at the Roundtable discussion, Chairman Dr Victor Fung said that the future of Hong Kong lies in its ability to smoothen and enhance the flow of goods, human resources, funds and information.

"Vibrant economy on the Chinese Mainland and Hong Kong has been driving traffic growth at HKIA. We are expanding our capacity and facilitating flows to meet such demand," Dr Fung said.

CEO Stanley Hui discussed the capacity challenges facing the airport in the air and on the ground, covering airspace constraints, runway capacity, apron and terminals facilities.

Hui said that HKIA has embarked on a series of enhancement programmes to expand its capacity and capture the huge demand for air services in coming years. Making capacity slightly ahead of demand is critical to the further growth and development of HKIA.

Projects under construction, for instance, include North Satellite Concourse, a permanent ferry pier SkyPier and a series of enhancement programmes in Terminal 1 and airfield.

Having sufficient runway capacity is crucial to the development of an airport. Hui said, "We will start the engineering and environmental feasibility studies on building a third runway at HKIA within this year. The findings will help decide whether and where to build a new runway."

The feasibility studies followed the completion of earlier ones that aimed at enhancing the capacity of the existing two runways and evaluating the potential benefits a new runway will bring.

"We are also planning for the development of the Midfield, the last piece of land on the airport island for large-scale development, to satisfy demands for additional parking stands, terminal and other pertinent facilities," he added.

The Roundtable discussion saw good interactions among participants. An academic pointed out that effective management of the PRD airspace is important because limited airspace would hamper runway capacity.

Another attendee opined that the rapid urbanisation of China poses an important challenge to Hong Kong. To remain competitive, Hong Kong has to enhance its position by attracting more passengers from second- or third-tier Mainland cities to fly to international destinations via HKIA.