6.3.1 Evidence that HKIA’s future growth is under threat
One of the key findings of this thesis appear to be that there is a consensus among the three empirical studies indicating HKIA is likely to maintain its role as the main air
transport hub in the Asia-Pacific region and the primary gateway to Mainland China. However, it is likely to face rapid international network expansions and increased competition from the major international gateway hub airports in Mainland China and around the Asia-Pacific region.
There are several Asian international hub airports (e.g. Beijing, Shanghai Pudong, Guangzhou, and Singapore airports) that could become serious challengers to HKIA’s future role as the key aviation hub for transporting connecting passenger traffic across the regions. Evidence presented in Chapter 4 suggests that many Asia-Pacific airports have significantly increased and expanded their flight connectivity networks to capture increasing air travel demand in the region. Also, it was found in Chapter 5 that the amount of connecting passenger traffic passing through HKIA is expected to grow at a smaller scale in the coming future. However, this situation is largely dependent upon the future growth of the international flight connectivity networks of the major Asian international hub airports in the region; the levels of network expansion of the major Asian international hub airports will have a direct negative impact on HKIA’s connecting passenger traffic, especially international passengers travelling to Mainland China (Robinson, 2006; Williams, 2006). Indeed, these findings suggest an immediate threat that may slow down HKIA’s future growth is coming from the smaller international airports in Southern China (the PRD region). Furthermore, HKIA’s long- term success depends on the development processes of other international gateway hub airports in Mainland China and around the Asia-Pacific region. For example, Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport will have five runways in operation by 2030 to accommodate the expected future growth of domestic and international passenger traffic (HKAA, 2011). However, future airport coordination among the A5 group (i.e. Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Xiamen, and Macau airports) is likely to improve their airport operational efficiency and customer services, and thus reduce competitions between airports in the PRD region as well as in the downstream airline markets (Oum & Yu, 2000). Arguably, HKIA and its neighbouring airports may benefit in a similar manner as co-coordination of air traffic movements by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (Mok, 1998).
Another important issue appears to be that the actions of the government of Hong Kong and the airport authority to deal with the current issues í the lack of airport capacity to meet future airport traffic demand and increased airport competition – are critical to maintain HKIA’s role as an aviation hub in the region and to sustain Hong Kong’s future competitiveness and economic growth. Although this thesis does not explore any specific actions undertaken by the government of Hong Kong and the airport authority to maintain and enhance HKIA’s role in the future, HKIA’s Master Plan 2030 is a good sign to show how government policy makers are mapping out a future development strategy for HKIA. It outlines the airport facility expansions and capacity enhancement required to meet the long-term air traffic demand of HKIA, and the final choice is to build a third runway, additional passenger terminal areas, aircraft parking spaces, and apron areas.
6.3.2 Implications for the Hong Kong government and the airport
authority
The finding in Chapter 3 that the significant effect of an airport’s hinterland population upon an airport’s efficiency is critical for Hong Kong’s airport authority. This factor may affect HKIA’s efficiency and future air passenger demand. This finding supports the arguments of Graham (1999) and Graham and Guyer (2000), who claimed that the size of an airport’s hinterland can be greatly changed by improvement in aircraft technology, the construction of strategic global airline alliances, and the creation of Hub-and-Spoke networks by airlines. In this case, Hong Kong’s airport authority may want to examine the importance of the airport’s hinterland in HKIA’s future air passenger volumes, by investigating to what extent HKIA relies on the hinterland (e.g. the increase in Mainland China’s population) in the neighbouring areas as the single product to support its future growth and success. For instance, it would be interesting for the airport authority to investigate how much of HKIA’s future growth between 2012 and 2030 can be accounted for by changes within the airport’s hinterland.
According to HKIA’s Master Plan 2030, HKIA is in a hurry to operate with a three- runway system to meet the long-term needs of Hong Kong up to and possibly beyond
2030 (HKAA, 2011). The findings of this thesis provide evidence to support the prior literature (Zhang, 2003; Robinson, 2006; Williams, 2006), all of which claimed that the improved efficiency of the major Asian international airports to handle airport traffic (i.e. air passenger numbers, air cargo volume, and aircraft movements), the rapid expansion of international flight connectivity networks among the Asia-Pacific airports, and the smaller growth rate of future air passenger traffic and/or connecting traffic via HKIA would undermine its overall competitiveness. Also, it is acknowledged that future analysis of these issues would be required to yield robust results, the findings may ultimately be useful for the government of Hong Kong and the airport authority to determine what actions need to be undertaken to enhance HKIA’s role as the main air transport hub in the Asia-Pacific region and China’s primary passenger gateway.
The research results of Chapter 5 reported in this thesis regarding air passenger traffic for HKIA’s 11 principal origins also have important implications. Accurate tourism forecasting of tourist arrivals from different regions or areas is one of the greatest challenges faced by the policy makers in Hong Kong government and the tourism industry (Song, Wong & Chon, 2003). Failure to anticipate increases in tourism demand or tourist arrivals may lead to considerable shortfalls in the supply of tourism infrastructure, because of the lead times involved in building and providing this infrastructure (Cho, 2003).
6.3.3 Application to other major international airports
This thesis analysed HKIA’s operation and future growth by investigating three different aspects such as airport efficiency, the airport’s network and connectivity, and future airport passenger throughput. In practice, it will be very useful if one could extend the study framework in this thesis to investigate other international hub airports in the global context. Indeed, the methodology for the analysis and forecasting of air passenger demand at large hub airports has previously well developed in the field of the air transport industry (Janice, 2008). It is argued that the time-series regression technique (i.e. the ARIMAX model with the selected explanatory variables) developed in this thesis to analyse and forecast HKIA’s future passenger throughput could inform
the design of econometric models applied to the forecasting of air passenger change at other international hub airports.