The Hong Kong International Airport handled 3.6 million passengers and 317,000 tons of cargo in September, declining 4.7 percent and 7.5 percent respectively from the same month last year, amid the global financial turmoil, the Airport Authority said Sunday.
Air traffic movements also edged down 0.4 percent to 24,570. Reduction in passenger traffic came mostly from visitor traffic while travel by Hong Kong residents and the transfer or transit passenger number decreased slightly. On the cargo front, the decline was across the board, including import, export and transshipment.
Stanley Hui Hon-chung, Chief Executive Officer of the Airport Authority said, the steep decline in traffic volumes in both passenger and air cargo clearly reflected a very troubled global economy as a result of the financial tsunami, which has affected all countries in the world. The United States and Europe, the biggest trading partners with Hong Kong, saw a significant drop in air cargo traffic to and from Hong Kong in the month.
Hui said, the National Day Golden Week holiday also brought fewer numbers of visitors to Hong Kong by air this year than 2007,showing a continuing decline in traffic between Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland as well.
"The aviation industry is expected to face even more difficult times in the coming months," he added.
Air traffic figures for the first nine months of this year recorded mild growth over the same period in 2007. Passenger volume rose 3.7 percent to 36.7 million, while cargo throughput and air traffic movements grew 3.0 percent and 3.1 percent to 2.8 million tons and 225,715 movements respectively.
Source: Xinhua
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