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The Hong Kong Airport Authority has wrapped up consultations with the airport's terminal operators on whether to grant Cathay Pacific permission to build its own aircargo terminal, but it appears unlikely that a decision will be made this year.
"The views of the existing terminals have been submitted to the Airport Authority board for review and discussion," said an Airport Authority spokesman. "We still need to communicate further with the existing terminal operators. A decision will be made, but we don't know when."
The "existing operators" are Hong Kong Air Cargo Terminals (Hactl) and the smaller Asia Airfreight Terminals (AAT), which opens its terminal two, a 910,000 tonne facility, later this month.
Cathay spokesman Carolyn Cheung said the carrier was not involved in the consultations and was waiting on the Airport Authority to make a decision. "Our position hasn't changed - we want our own terminal," she said.
A spokesman for Hactl said it was now up to the Airport Authority to decide how to move forward.
If Cathay is allowed to build its dedicated terminal, the Hong Kong-based carrier will take more than one million tones of freight away from Hactl. The two companies have dug in their heels at opposing sides of the argument: Cathay maintains that Hactl's handling capacity will be saturated by 2009, but Hactl says it can meet demand for at least another 11 years.
In an earlier statement, Cathay director and general manager of cargo Ron Mathison said Hong Kong's hub position was being threatened by new, lower cost airports in the Pearl River Delta. He said the airport's success as a hub would depend on Cathay's ability to compete with other hub carriers by lowering its aircargo handling costs. |
