Aviation Day 2023 hosted in Hong Kong

Aviation Day 2023, a signature conference for the global aviation industry, kicked off in Hong Kong on August 2nd, attracting more than 1,000 aviation industry professionals from around the world. 

At the kick-off ceremony, Paul Chan, financial secretary of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government, said that the future was bright for Hong Kong as an aviation hub, together with the sunny economic outlook of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) and a flurry of infrastructural development. 

Chan also mentioned that the HKSAR government, together with the Hong Kong Airport Authority, was transforming the airport into an "Airport City," under which the Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA) would be developed into a node of various economic activities with aviation as its core business, making the airport a new engine which would propel the growth of Hong Kong and the GBA as a whole. 

Jack So, Chairperson of Airport Authority Hong Kong, said that despite being impacted by the epidemic, "we kept our confidence not only in keeping the airport open, but also building for the future with our Three-runway System expansion project". 

He added that with the expansion, the HKIA's capacity would be increased by 50 percent, ready to serve up to 120 million passengers and 10 million tons of cargo annually. So also mentioned that the passenger volume at the HKIA had recovered to about 60 percent of pre-pandemic levels, and he expected that the airport would fully recover by the end of 2024. 

The two-day event, co-hosted by the HKIA and the International Air Transport Association, gathered industry leaders to share insight on topics including new opportunities for air travel and air cargo in the GBA, new technology trends in the aviation industry, and more 

(Xinhua)