Integrating with Shenzhen offers a way forward for aviation in HK

Cathay Pacific, Hong Kong's flagship carrier, admitted on May 22 it will slash 600 staff from its head office, the company's largest job cuts in 20 years. The move came after the airline reported a staggering HK$575 million loss for last year and replaced its chief executive. Clearly the airline, with more than 70 years' history, is stuck in quagmire.

Despite the apparent predicament of Cathay, the development of Hong Kong's civil aviation industry looks fine at first glance. The total number of passengers through Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA) has grown from 47 million in 2007 to 70.3 million last year, making it the eighth-busiest airport in the world. However, competition between major aviation hubs in the Pearl River Delta region has intensified in recent years. The Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport handled 31 million passengers in 2007; the number almost doubled to 59.7 million last year. The Shenzhen Bao'an International Airport, once a minnow compared with HKIA with only 12.1 million passengers in 2007, last year transported 42 million passengers, more than triple.

Considering the Shenzhen airport is opening more international routes and expanding rapidly, the status of HKIA as a regional aviation hub is facing imminent challenge. However, it would not be a wise choice for Hong Kong to engage in a head-on competition with Shenzhen, as the special administrative region is restrained by land scarcity and high construction costs. A more appropriate solution would be for the airports in the two cities to achieve a status of symbiosis through coordination and division of labor. The Shenzhen airport could focus on domestic routes - especially to second- and third-tier mainland cities, while the HKIA could continue to strengthen its international links.

A bottleneck for cooperation between the two airports is transport. It takes more than one hour to travel between the Shenzhen and Hong Kong airports by bus, and there are only a few ferry services every day. For passengers who may want to transfer between the two airports, slow and limited transport options are a major hindrance. To fix the bottleneck, Hong Kong and Shenzhen governments should consider building a railway link between the two airports. Even a medium-speed train going at 160 kilometers per hour can finish the 40 km journey between the two airports in 15 minutes.

The airports railway link would effectively integrate the two airports into one. Suppose a resident in Yinchuan, capital of the Ningxia Hui autonomous region in Northwest China, plans to spend his holiday in Penang, Malaysia. Because there is no direct flight between Shenzhen and Penang, nor between Hong Kong and Yinchuan, he can only choose Guangzhou as the transfer airport as it has direct flights to both. If the above-mentioned railway link is constructed, he can first take a domestic flight to the Shenzhen airport, take the train and arrive at HKIA in a wink, and then board a flight to Penang. Thus the railway link will bring more passengers to both the Hong Kong and Shenzhen airports.

The railway would also play a role beyond an airports link. The Guangdong province is building up a Pearl River Delta Rapid Transit (PRDRT) railway system, planning to link all nine Guangdong cities in the Pearl River Delta and some other cities in the province outside the region. The Guangzhou-Dongguan-Shenzhen Intercity Railway, a part of the PRDRT, also sets a station at the Shenzhen airport. Currently there is no link connecting Hong Kong to the railway system, thus the Hong Kong-Shenzhen airports railway would also connect the special administrative region with the PRDRT. It would facilitate integration between Hong Kong and other cities in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.