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HKIA’s Third Runway
—The Key for Enhancing Hong Kong’s Aviation Position
(28/11/2007)
by
Dr. Cheung Kwok Law
Professor Michael Fung
Professor Japhet Law
Dicky Tse
Ka Yan Chan
Aviation Policy and Research Center,
Department of Decision Sciences and Managerial Economics
The Chinese University of Hong Kong .
Content
Chapter 1 Objectives of the Study 1
1.1 Background 1
1.2 Objectives 2
1.3 Research Framework 4
Chapter 2 Regional Airports’ Development and Expansion 5
2.1 Asian Aviation Hubs 5
2.2 Mainland Major Airports 6
Chapter 3 Regional Demand Forecast for Aviation Services 10
3.1 Rapid Growth in Asia-Pacific’s Air Transport 10
3.2 The Increasing Importance of China’s Aviation Market 11
3.3 Hong Kong’s Aviation Development under Mainland’s Rapid Growth 16
Chapter 4 Capacity Issues and Enhancement Measures for HKIA 18
4.1 The Capacity of the Hong Kong International Airport 18
4.2 Runway Capacity Enhancement Measures 21
4.2.1 Aircraft Types Trends and its effects to Runway Capacity 22
4.3 Possible Measures 27
4.3.1 Air Transport Management Approach 27
4.3.2 Enhanced ATC & Aircraft Equipment, Technology, Procedures and Manpower 29
4.3.3 Expansion of Auxiliary Airside Facilities 30
4.3.4 Peak Spreading 32
4.3.5 Aircraft Size Restrictions 32
4.4 Conclusions 34
Chapter 5 Selected Case Studies for Building New Runways 35
5.1 London Heathrow Airport third Runway 35
5.2 Manchester International Airport Second Runway 40
5.3 Tokyo Narita International Airport Second Runway 44
5.4 Conclusion 46
Chapter 6 Supply of and Demand for HKIA Services 48
6.1 The Estimated Future Traffic Demand for HKIA 48
6.2 Possible Capacity Enhancement Measures on HKIA’s Two Runways 49
6.2.1 ATC Systems Enhancement Measures (see also Section 4.3.2 & 4.3.3) 50
6.2.2 ATM Procedural Enhancement Measures (see also Section 4.3.1) 51
6.3 Airspace Utilization 54
6.4 Time Schedule--Planning for the Third Runway ? 56
6.5 Conclusions 62
Chapter 7 Building of the Third Runway—Issues and Problems 63
7.1 Airport Design and Runway Configuration 63
7.2 The Configuration of the Third Runway with a Fourth Runway Consideration 66
7.3 Environmental Issues for the Third Runway 70
7.3.1 The New Environmental Impact Assessment Ordinance (EIAO) and the Third Runway 70
7.3.2 Noise 72
7.3.3 Emission 73
7.3.4 Water Pollution and Marine Ecology 74
7.4 Conclusion 76
Chapter 8 Economic Impact Assessment of the Third Runway 78
8.1 Economic Contribution of Aviation Sector in Hong Kong 78
8.1.1 Methodology and Estimation 79
8.1.1.1 Direct Benefits 79
8.1.1.2 Indirect Benefits 80
8.1.1.3 Total Benefits 91
8.2 Economic Impact of the third Runway 92
8.3 Economic Evaluation of Environmental Impact 101
8.3.1 Costs of Pollutants 102
8.3.2 Costs of Noise 111
8.3.3 Congestion 111
8.4 Conclusion 112
Chapter 9 Conclusions and Policy Recommendations 113
Acknowledgment 117
Literatures & References 118
Chapter 1 Objectives of the Study
1.1 Background
Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA) has been gaining excellent reputation from the aviation industry and travellers worldwide since its early days of operation. In recent years, Hong Kong’s air transport industry benefited directly from the rapid growth of the Asia-Pacific and Chinese markets. Despite such strong growth, Hong Kong has encountered fierce competition from its regional neighbours and even within the same catchment area (the Pearl River Delta Region, PRD). Airspace and ground congestion have become more serious over time.
To cope with the increasing air traffic demand and competition, the Airport Authority Hong Kong (AAHK) has published a report on ‘HKIA 2025’ in December 2006: a master plan outlining the airport potential plan to meet the future demand. The AAHK has suggested constructing a third parallel runway with around 1km separation from the current north runway. However, mixed views have been received from both the industry and the public about the proposal.
‘HKIA 2025’ also proposed a HK$ 4.5 billion investment programme which would include an injection of HK$1.5 billion to enhance the Passenger Terminal Building. The remainder would be invested in the airfield including the construction of a new satellite concourse for smaller aircraft. The AAHK will work with the Civil Aviation Department to maximize the capacity of the existing two runways, assess the feasibility of the third runway and support the co-ordinated development within the PRD airports network system.
According to The Basic Law (Chapter 5 Economy, Section 4 Civil Aviation, Article 128), it has clearly stated that ‘The Government of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region shall provide conditions and take measures for maintenance of the status of Hong Kong as the centre of international and regional aviation’ [HKSAR, 2007]. Thus, HKIA and the HKSAR Government must address capacity constraints both on the ground and in the air in the short term and long term, in order to sustain Hong Kong’s position as an international aviation hub.
The current capacity of the two runways is around 54 movements per hour, which is still below the ultimate capacity estimated by the government [HKSAR, 2007]. The third runway will be costly and require another major landfill at HKIA. Given the curent atmosphere in Hong Kong, costing and environmental issues will likely be under much public scrutiny and the process will be lengthy. Some industry experts also suggested that building the third runway would be pointless, unless the PRD airspace issue has first been resolved.
1.2 Objectives
HKIA is very congested now and will run out of capacity at some point in time in the not-too-distant future. Of course, many enhancement measures can be implemented to expand its capacity to some extent during the interim period. However, this “ultimate capacity” would be reached eventually and the third runway should be ready to serve. In this study, we attempt to take a look at the timing when this third runway “should be ready” so as to prevent significant impairment to our economy. Objectives of this study can be stated as the follows:
(a)
To review the air traffic demand forecasts which are relevant to Hong Kong, and the expansion plans of other regional and PRD airports (Chapter 2 and 3) ;
(b)
To examine factors affecting the current capacity of HKIA and the feasibility of enhancement measures to improve capacity (Chapter 4) ;
(c)
To review recent experiences on building new runways by other major airports (Chapter 5) ;
(d)
To estimate the “ultimate capacity” of the HKIA under the current two runways configuration and establish a time schedule for the planning and construction of the third runway (Chapter 6) ;
(e)
To examine the important issues, particularly operational and environmental, involved in the building of the third runway (Chapter 7) ;
(f)
To provide an economic assessment of the third runway (Chapter 8) ;
(g)
To provide policy recommendations regarding the third runway (Chapter 9).
1.3 Research Framework
The Aviation Policy & Research Centre (APRC) began work on the subject since the AAHK ‘HKIA 2025’ was unveiled. Researchers have visited relevant organizations locally and internationally to learn more about the subject. In the following, we illustrate the research framework for reference.
A direction and investigation framework for more detailed analysis
Fig 1: Analytical Framework for this report
Chapter 2 Regional Airports’ Development and Expansion
In this section, the development of airport infrastructure in the Region, including major airports in Mainland China is reviewed. It will provide an overview of the competitive landscape for the HKIA, within which HKIA’s third runway is to be considered.
2.1 Asian Aviation Hubs
Air transport has been growing rapidly in Asia in the last ten years. The rate of growth is much higher than that in the more mature markets of Europe and North America. Asian nations have now recognised the importance of the aviation industry to their economies, and recent economic development in the region has provided the impetus and resources for aviation infrastructure development. Table 2.1 below summarized some of the major airport projects in the region in recent years.
Bangkok Suvarnabhumi Airport, Thailand (commencing in 2006)
Kuala Lumpur Sepang Airport, Malaysia (commencing in 1998)
Singapore Changi Airport, Singapore (commencing in 1991)
Tokyo Narita Airport, Japan (commencing in 1978)
Taipei Taoyun Airport, R.O.C. (commencing in 1979)
Seoul Incheon Airport, South Korea (commencing in 2001)
Asian Airports’ Development (all having 2 runways currently)
The new Suvarnabhumi Airport opened for operation in September 2006, with 2 runways of 4,000m and 3,700m respectively. Its passenger terminal is the 2nd largest in the world, just behind HKIA. Project costs was around 155 billion baht
A new runway & a new satellite building are under the planning stage
New low cost terminal opened in March 2006, plus extensive upgrade costing S$240 million in Terminal 2. Terminal 3 will be operational in 2008. Additional land has been reserved for two extra wide-spaced runways
2nd runway started operation in April 2002, after long delays. Plans for new taxiways construction
Taiwan is having plans to develop the 4th terminal, the 3rd runway, a new cargo area in the longer term
The 3rd runway of 4,000m and taxiway system will become operational before August 2008. Construction cost is about US$1.22 billion
Table 2.1 Major Airport Developments in Asia-Pacific Region
These airports are major international hubs in the Region and all are competing directly with Hong Kong for both passenger and cargo traffic. They are seriously considering the expansion of their airport infrastructures at various stages in order to capture the anticipated growth of demand in the region. For example, new Asian hubs like Seoul Incheon Airport and Kuala Lumpur Airport are both having the third runway under the planning stage. As for Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysia-based low cost carrier AirAsia has been expanding rapidly. The recovering of South Korea’s economy plus its recent increased business ties with China on air cargo services have provided optimism for Korea’s future aviation development.
2.2 Mainland Major Airports
For Hong Kong, airports in Mainland China also generate significant competition. All the ‘Big Three’ airports in China: Shanghai Pudong, Beijing Capital, Guangzhou Baiyun are planning to expand their existing facilities. The expansion plan for Guangzhou is particularly ambitious. It is planning to build a new runway every 5 years. As we can see from Table 2.2, all of them have a new runway included in their Master Plans.
Shanghai Pudong Project Development 2nd Terminal for international pax (480,000 sq.m) Estimated budget RMB 20 billion Starting date Dec 2005 Expect finishing time 2007 Expect operation time 2008
3rd runway (3,400m) & ancillary facilities
Southterminal side cargo
Beijing Capital 3rd pax terminal to cope with the upcoming Olympics RMB 19.45 billion Mar 2004 2007 2008
3rd runway and ancillary facilities
Related surface access roads and highway
Guangzhou Baiyun New pax terminal (300,000 sq m) Pier expansion to increase apron number to 166 (inc. both pax & cargo) New cargo terminal RMB 11.4 billion 2006 2010 (2nd expansion phase) 2008 (UPS Asia-Pacific hub) 2010 (2nd expansion phase) 2008 (UPS Asia-Pacific hub)
Expansion of Metro Line 3 to Terminal 2
Set space for the planning of the 5th runway
Shenzhen Bao’an 2nd runway New passenger terminal RMB 11 billion Dec 2006 2009 2010
Table 2.2 China’s major airport development
China, being the second largest commercial aviation market in the world [Boeing,
2006], would need to provide more runways and airports to support its tremendous economic development in the coming years. According to Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), there are only 147 airports for civil aircraft to serve a population of over 1.3 billion [CAAC, 2007]. This compares very unfavourably with developed countries such as the US, which has 14,807 airports serving a country with 270 million people [ATW, 2006]. During the 10th Five-Year Plan period (2000-2005), a total infrastructure investment of 94.7 billion Yuan was made in fixed assets in the whole industry, 21 new airports were built and a large number of airports were modified or expanded in China. In the current 11th Five-Year Plan period (2005-2010), 140 billion Yuan will be spent on airport infrastructure [CAAC, 2007]. Some 190 civil airports is expected to be in operation by 2010 in China [Wang, 2007], and this number is expected to further increased to 220 by 2020 [Ionides, 2007]. Despite the expansion efforts, it is anticipated that demand will likely be outpacing supply in China.
The capacity shortage problem is especially severe for the Beijing Capital Airport. The upcoming 2008 Beijing Olympic Game will most likely worsen the capacity constraints. As for the southern part of China, being the most rapidly growth region of the boosting economy, we have seen increasing aircraft movements within the PRD region. Table 2.3 summarized aircraft movement statistics of the five major airports in PRD.
Hong Kong Macau Guangzhou Shenzhen Zhuhai
Aircraft Movement (Flights)
2000 181,927 28,692 132,776 74,251 17,369
2001 196,833 32,506 137,355 87,875 23,298
2002 206,705 37,564 147,740 106,718 23,260
2003 187,508 31,293 142,283 119,523 14,965
2004 237,308 40,506 182,780 140,452 22,389
2005 263,506 45,004 211,309 151,430 22,742
2006 280,387 51,049 232,404 169,493 24,352
Average Annual 7.48% 10.1% 9.78% 14.7% 5.79%
Growth
Table 2.3: Aircraft movement growth in Pearl River Delta (PRD) region [Data sources: CAD& MIA homepage, 2007, CAAC Statistical data 2001-2007]
The five major airports in PRD have passenger growth at an annual rate exceeding more than 5%, with Shenzhen having an average annual growth rate of nearly 15% between 2000 and 2006. Although Zhuhai experienced a relatively low level of growth during the period, the recent co-operation between AAHK and the Zhuhai Government (under the Zhuhai-Hong Kong Airport Management Company: a joint-venture between AAHK with a 55% stake and the state-owned Assets Supervision & Administration Commission of the Zhuhai Municipal People's Government) will bring new impetus and growth to its operation. HKIA aircraft movements have been growing at 7.5%, much higher than the original official forecast.
Chapter 3 Regional Demand Forecast for Aviation Services
In this section we review major air traffic statistics and forecasts, which points to the rapid growth projected for Asia Pacific in the next 20 years.
3.1 Rapid Growth in Asia-Pacific’s Air Transport
Despite the downturn of the aviation industry after the 9/11, the growth of world economy, tourism, trade and more liberalized air market have resulted in a stronger than ever demand for air services. Different organizations and companies from the industry such as Airport Council International (ACI), Boeing and Airbus have all forecasted a strong growth in air services in the next 20 years. This is particularly true for the Asia-Pacific market. During the period, the Asia market is projected to overtake the North America market [Boeing, 2006]. Table 3.1 summarized the views from the industry forecast of the world and Asia-Pacific for the next 20 years.
Annual Growth Airbus Boeing ACI
Asia-Pacific Passenger Growth 6% 6.4% 5.8%
Global Passenger Growth 4.8% 4.9% 4.0%
Asia-Pacific Freight Growth 6.8% 6.9% 6.5%
Global Freight Growth 6% 6.1% 5.4%
Asia-Pacific Aircraft Movement Growth N/a N/a 6.3%
Global Aircraft Movement Growth N/a N/a 2.8%
Table 3.1 Global and Asia-Pacific air traffic growth forecasts 2006-2025 [ACI, Airbus, Boeing 2006]
All of these forecasts expected that the Asia-Pacific passengers would grow by about
6% per annum on average, while freight would grow by about 6.5%. These two numbers are about one percentage point higher than the corresponding global average growth rate.
Within this scenario of high growth, Hong Kong’s aviation market recorded a double-digit growth in 2006, i.e. 40.7 million passengers (included 930,000 in transit) passed through the airport (up from 9.7% over 2004). Aircraft movements went up by 11% to a total of 263,000, and air cargo increased by 10% to 3.4 million tones. The corresponding value of air cargo also increased by 17% [HKSAR, 2007]. As an international aviation hub, the aviation sector has been contributing to Hong Kong economy: APRC has estimated that the aviation sector contributed 8.67% of GDP to Hong Kong, and around 7% of Hong Kong’s employment in 2005.
3.2 The Increasing Importance of China’s Aviation Market
Asia nations are the fastest growing economies in the world and is home to 60.4% of the world’s population in 2007 [UN, 2007]. While this number is projected to decrease to 55% by 2050, the economic contribution from this 55% will most likely be significantly higher than that contributed by the 60.4% today. Asia nations are the world’s major exporters and attract a record amount of foreign investment. China is now the fourth largest economy in the world, behind the US, Japan and Germany. The GDP of China is estimated to be USD$2,630 billion in 2006. [IMF, 2007].
In the last ten years, China’s aviation growth was almost twice as much as the average
global growth and it’s traffic movements has moved up from being ranked ninth in the world in 2000 to being ranked second in 2005 [CAAC, 2007]. In the presence of a strong demand, the airport infrastructure in China is facing both opportunities and challenges.
One of the difficulties that China is facing is insufficient runways for a population of
1.3 billion. There are only 147 certified airports in China (not including HKIA and Macau). Among them, only 113 and 25 can accommodate B737 and B747 respectively [CAAC, 2007]. Fig 3.2 shows the changes of aircraft movement of the ‘Big three’ airports in China (Beijing, Shanghai Pudong and Guangzhou). Shenzhen is also included in this figure due to its significance to the PRD region and effects on HKIA. The graph compares the annual aircraft movement of each airport from 2001 to 2006. Each airport shows a high level of aircraft movements, Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou airports are among the top three China airports in terms of aircraft movements. Shenzhen and Shanghai are particular worth noting because of the two airports still managed to grow in terms of aircraft movements during the SARS outbreak in 2003. These airports account for nearly 30% of total China’s aircraft movements. The strong growth of China’s aviation would mean that more runway capacity would need to be greatly expanded in order to meet the future demand, especially for these four airports.
China’s aviation industry will encounter a major challenge in 2008 and 2010 as a result of the hosting of the Olympic Game and the World Expo. The Beijing Capital Airport was the top Asian airport by aircraft movement in 2006 (a 10.2% increase to 376,643 as compared with 2005) and second by passengers at 48.6 million [ACI, 2007]. As for 2007, domestic passengers have been estimated to increase by 16% to 185 million [Ionides, 2007]. This high growth is also reflected in the new aircraft orders depicted in Table 3.3 by major Chinese airlines in 2006, Airport infrastructures and airspace in China must be expanded significantly to cope with the growth.
Narrow-body type (single aisle) Wide-body type (twin aisle)
Air China 60 27
Air China Cargo 3 -
China Eastern Airlines 70 -
China Southern Airlines 85 24
Hainan Airlines 99 12
Lucky Air 1 -
Shandong Airlines 27 -
Shanghai Airlines 30 9
Shenzhen Airlines 35 -
Total Aircraft Orders in 2006: 482 Existing Aircraft in the China Air Transport Industry: 982
Table 3.3 China’s Airlines Aircraft Orders Statistics 2006 [Summarized from ATW & CAAC, 2007]
According to statistics from CAAC, in 2005 the entire industry carried a total air traffic, passenger traffic and cargo traffic (included mail) of 25.92 billion tones-km, 138 million passengers and 3.035 million tones respectively, representing increases of 111.6%, 105.3% and 89.2% respectively as compared to the figures in 2000. The authority expected the strong growth in demand will continue. Figures 3.4.1-3.4.3 illustrate CAAC’s forecast on aviation demand by 2020. The demand will be nearly 5 times more than the demand in 2005. [CAAC, 2006 & 2007].
3.3 Hong Kong’s Aviation Development under Mainland’s Rapid Growth
Long before the rapid growth of China’s modern economy, Hong Kong has always been “The Gateway to China”. After the handover in 1997, the closer co-operation between Mainland and Hong Kong in air services has provided more opportunities for Hong Kong’s aviation industry. However, Shenzhen and Guangzhou airports in the Pearl River Delta have become increasingly competitive as well in recent years. More liberal air service agreements have also resulted in more air traffic rights between China and the rest of the world. The restructuring of Chinese carriers would also improve their service quality and competitiveness.
Given the rapid growth and size of the Chinese economy, China will significantly influence and shape the pattern of airline networks in Asia and linkages with other continents. Hong Kong, being a Special Administrative Region of China, has obvious advantages over regional competitors such as Singapore and Taipei to expand into the China market. Hong Kong’s efficient aviation industry could foster and attract new business opportunities into the Region and Mainland, where HKIA can play an important role.
Airports are fix-based assets and their businesses rely heavily on the quality of services providing to airlines, passengers and logistics service providers. HKIA has consistently been providing world class services since its opening 10 years ago, as evidenced by the top rankings they have received throughout these years, both by the travelling public and by other authoritative organizations. Given the fact that airport developments will take years to complete, it is crucial for the government to plan proactively ahead of time in its infrastructure development to maintain the competitive edge of HKIA, while taking account of demand factors and competitive environment into consideration. Table 2.3 showed that all the PRD airports except Zhuhai has experienced higher growth rate than Hong Kong. By assuming similar growth rates for the airports as depicted in Table 2.3, including the case where HKIA grows at the AAHK predicted rate of 3%, we can see in the resulting projection of aircraft movements as shown in Figure 4.5 that Shenzhen and Guangzhou airports will surpass HKIA by 2009 and 2011 respectively using the 3% rate for Hong Kong, and by 2014 using past growth rate of 7% for Hong Kong. According to sources from CAD, Guangzhou could experience more aircraft movements than HKIA by 2015.
Projected Aircraft Movement Growth of the PRD Airports
2,500,000
2,000,000
1,500,000
1,000,000
500,000
-
Annual Aircraft Movement
Year
Fig 4.5 Projected Aircraft Movement Growth of the Five PRD Airports
HONG KOND (AA Predicted Annual Growth Rate of 3%)
MACAU
ZHUHAI
SHENZHEN
Guangzhou
HONG KONG (around 7% Annual Growth based on Historical Trend)
Chapter 4 Capacity Issues and Enhancement Measures for HKIA
4.1 The Capacity of the Hong Kong International Airport
In this section, the capacity of Hong Kong’s International Airport is studied together with various measures which can be considered to expand the current capacity. This will provide the basis for estimating when HKIA’s ultimate capacity will be reached.
HKIA consist of two widely-spaced parallel runways, with a separation of 1,525m. Its current capacity is 54 movements/hour according to CAD. The two runways have an ultimate capacity of over 60 aircraft movement/hour [HKSAR, 2007]. Ultimate capacity is the maximum expected number of movements that can be performed in one hour of a runway system without violating air transport management (ATM) rules, assuming continuous aircraft demand. Because of the idealization, this ultimate capacity is unlikely to be achievable consistently in day-to-day operations.
Many factors will determine how close the practical capacity (which takes into account delays as a measure of level of services) each day could be when compared with the ultimate runway capacity. ATC procedures, of course, will have a big part to play. Yet, the design of these procedures is in turn affected by other external factors such as terrain, airspace availability and aircraft navigation performance. Hence, airport authorities seldom give a predicted ‘ultimate annual capacity’ due to the uncertainties involved. Indeed, the current 54 movements/hour at HKIA is a reference target number constrained by many dynamic operational factors. This 54 movements/hour is still below HKIA’s runway’s ultimate capacity.
There are two concepts of airport capacity: Airside and Landside. Basically, airside facilities are infrastructures that serve aircraft and connect passengers to aircraft. It also includes the terminal airspace, taxiway system, aprons (the area where aircraft are served and parked) and gates. The runway is always the core element of the airside system. On the other hand, landside facilities include terminal building, car parking facilities, etc. Differences between the two concepts may have led to misinterpretations about HKIA’s ultimate capacity.
According to the original design, the maximum capacity of HKIA was to be more than 80 million passengers a year [HKSAR, 2007]. Hence, HKIA can be considered to be fairly under-capacity based on the 45 million passengers handled in 2006. However, all indicators point to the imminent saturation of our airside capacity as can be seen in a typical weekly schedule of our runways depicted in Fig. 4.2.
The ‘HKIA 2025’ forecasts showed that by 2025, 80 million passengers, 8 million tonnes of cargo and 490,000 annual aircraft movements will be achieved [AAHK, 2006]. These forecasts would be equivalent to an average annual growth rate of about 3%. With this forecast growth and ultimate capacity given by the Government, we will attempt to estimate when this ultimate capacity will be exceeded. Due to the dynamic nature of capacity, an exact value for this ultimate capacity is not given (as indicated by the Government as over 60 movements/hour). We assume the ‘current’ ultimate capacity to be 65 movements per hour. This movement figure is a reasonable figure for analysis at this stage because according to CAD, the highest recorded aircraft hourly movement of HKIA is 65 movement/hour. As the aircraft annual movement is directly proportional to the aircraft hourly movement. We have estimated that the airside capacity is likely to be saturated around 2013. (see Fig 4.3)
Based on the above, one may conclude that there is an imbalance between the operational capacity of landside and airside facilities at HKIA, and it would be useful to explore possible means with which the capacity of airside facilities can be increased.
4.2 Runway Capacity Enhancement Measures
The ultimate airside capacity of an airport is a rather complex quantity which depends on many factors such as: the layout of the airfield, terminal location and footprint, runway and taxiway operations, apron maneuver, air-traffic peaking characteristics, aircraft mix of arrival and departure queues, and airspace approach and departure routing plus hold points and speed control. Beside the airport layout itself, the aircraft
mix is the most dominate factors in terms of runway capacity. As an airport is nearing
its full capacity, the government and airport authority will attempt to derive measures to enhance its capacity. In theory, all the following measures can be considered:
4.2.1 Aircraft Types Trends and its effects to Runway Capacity
Aircraft types (mix) have an enormous effect on runway capacity. In air traffic control, aircraft are required to be separated by a certain minimum distance to ensure air safety. The standards of the separation vary in different country. However, it must at least refer to the standards of International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) (document no 4444- ‘Procedures for Air Navigation Services - Air Traffic Management’.) Separation distance varies with aircraft size. It is mainly due to the different scale of wake vortices generated. Wake vortice is a by-product of lift generated behind an aircraft’s lifting surface (e.g. wing). Hence, larger aircraft generate more wake vortices and a smaller aircraft would need a wider safety distance to fly behind a large wide-body airliner. As a result, this will affect the runway capacity.
Table 4.4 shows the required separation distance for different aircraft size recommended by the ICAO. The new ICAO guidance takes into account the operation of new A380 aircraft which will generate more wake vortex than existing civil aircraft types. A380 is in a category of its own while other aircraft types are divided up into three categories: Heavy (H), Medium (M) and Light (L) based on their weights as the categories suggested. Although at this moment there’s no ‘L’ class aircraft using HKIA, the growing private jet business in Asia will likely have more influence to the HKIA operations in the future, as witnessed by the recent expansion of business aviation facilities at HKIA.
Leading aircraft Following aircraft Approach separation (in nautical miles)
A380 A380 H M L 4 6 8 10
Table 4.4 Modified ICAO Approach Radar Separation Recommendation [Cathay Pacific, 2007]
Airbus Industrie recently published ‘Global Market Forecast 2006-2025’ on world air transport market in 2006. According to the Report, more than 70% of all aircraft delivered in the next 20 years will be narrow-body types with seating for 100-220 passengers - representing more than 15,300 aircraft. Wide-body aircraft (e.g. B747, A340) requirement will continue to grow strongly, with an estimated 5,300 new airliners in this category being delivered in the next two decades. In the very large aircraft sector (VLA) e.g. A380, it anticipates a demand for 1,660 aircraft. Airbus also states that Asian LCCs is the key of narrow-body demand in Asia-Pacific. The Asian LCCs are expected to develop their fleets quickly from a relatively low base of 236 single-aisle aircraft today, to about 1,300 by 2025 [Airbus, 2006].
Regional Jets Narrow-body Wide-body 747 and Regional
(e.g. Embraer, (e.g. B737, (e.g. Larger (e.g. Total
Gulfstream A320) B777/A340 B747/A380)
executive jets) types)
End of 170 1,800 830 470 3,270
2005
End of 670 5,340 2,830 770 9,610
2025
% change 294.12% 196.67% 240.96% 63.83% 193.88%
Table 4.5 Boeing Forecast on Asia-Pacific Aircraft Demand from 2005 to 2025 [Boeing, 2006]
Boeing also shared the same view as its European competitor. They expected stronger narrow-body growth than wide-body. Table 4.5 above summarizes Boeing’s views on how the fleet will develop in Asia-Pacific over the next 20 years. Boeing classifications of aircraft types are slightly different from the Airbus. However, they both showed an emerging dominance of narrow-body aircraft than large-body aircraft in the market.
As for HKIA, data from the past few years did show that there was a growing number of narrow-body operations. According to an ex-Director General of CAD, back in the days when HKIA was still under the planning stage, the number of narrow-body short-haul aircraft such as the Airbus A320 and Boeing 737 was only predicted to be around 10% of the total traffic [Ming Pao 2006]. HKIA was expected to handle more wide-body aircraft such as the Boeing 747. The official statistics indicated that the
numbers of the narrow-bodied aircraft in recent years has far exceeded this predicted
aircraft mix. In the future, more smaller planes will be needed as regional flights will be growing rapidly, which reinforces the industry’s forecasts on the expansion of small narrow-body aircraft in Asia. Table 4.6 summarised the aircraft types that have been using the HKIA from 2002 to 2005. The analysis assumes all the freighter aircraft were wide-body types. Cathay Pacific data also shows that the average seats per passenger aircraft at HKIA has droped from 295 seats in Summer 1998 (when Kai Tak was still in operation) to less than 250 seats in Summer 2006 [Cathay Pacific, 2007].
Share of narrow-body Share of the narrow Ratio of Cargo to
aircraft out of the total body aircraft out of Passenger aircraft
passenger operations the total aircraft movement
(per week) movement
2002 28.3% 24.66% 1: 8.8
2003 29.64% 24.87% 1: 7.45
2004 29.82% 25.21% 1: 5.6
2005 34.65% 28.93% 1: 5.87
Table 4.6 HKIA Aircraft Type Changes [Analysis based on CAD, Tourism Board and AA HK data, assuming cargo aircraft and non-revenue flights are wide-body type]
HKIA, being a major hub for worldwide hub-and-spokes operations and an important transit city on the famous ‘kangeroo’ route (flights between Europe and Australia and New Zealand, HKIA has a very strategic role to play in world’s aviation. In fact, the A380 is tailor-designed for such operations and could replace a substantial number of B747. According to Airbus, in 2025, 68% of the world’s fleet of 1,263 VLA will be used on flights from just the top 20 large aircraft airports. Out of that 20 airports [Airbus, 2006], HKIA is predicted to be the top airport that would generate most of the A380 size traffic (see figure 4.7).
In recent years, HKIA has been experiencing a more non-homogenous aircraft mix. New Hong Kong-based carriers such as Oasis Hong Kong Airlines, Hong Kong Airlines (formerly known as CR Airways), Hong Kong Express and Metrojet have been growing rapidly in Hong Kong. These carriers vary in their business models and adopt different aircraft types. The use of private and corporate jets is also on the increase. Together with the growth of the existing large aircraft operations by the long-established carriers, the introduction of A380, expanding LCCs and increasing number of private business jets in the region. it is very likely that we will see a wide variety of sizes of aircraft using HKIA in the future. This will further worsen the slot constraints at HKIA and may lead to further airside capacity reduction.
4.3 Possible Measures
4.3.1 Air Transport Management Approach
ATM enhancement is about how the runways at a particular airport could be operated in order to give the maximum possible capacity. Currently, HKIA’s South Runway is mainly used for take-off, whilst, the North Runway is used for landing. Such arrangement is mainly due to the terrain near the South Runway. This may not be an optimal solution to maximize capacity. It may overload one runway and underutilize another at times when the number of arrivals differs significantly from the number of departures. An alternative operations mode such as the ‘mixed-mode’ (allow both departure and approach at the same runway) would give controllers much more flexibility to sequence flights based on prevalent traffic patterns. If the airport faced a departure push, aircraft could take off from both runways instead of lining up on the South Runway. Indeed, the two runways could be used for both take-off and landing at different times.
In this respect, British Airways has been urging Heathrow to adopt the ‘mixed-mode’ in order to provide extra capacity. The UK carrier’s study showed that the mixed-mode could add 5-15% extra capacity to Heathrow, mainly because it is generally less wake-vortex dependent. Furthermore, BA suggested Heathrow to use an arrival procedure known as ‘TEAM- Tactical Enhanced Arrival Mode’. The airline demonstrated that TEAM would provide an elementary level of mixed-mode operation and would improve the capacity in the short run. When the number of arrival holding reaches a high level, runways can be operated in a mixed arrival/departure mode. This allows air traffic controllers to ‘handpick’ the best
aircraft combination to minimize the aircraft separation environment. Hence, the
maximum capacity could be enhanced (see fig 4.8).
A
London Heathrow
Fig 4.8 ‘TEAM’ Operations: Imagine a day that LHR gets busy and ‘TEAM’ is used, whilst both runway could be used for approach, large aircraft (e.g. an Airbus A320) ‘B’ could use heavy aircraft (e.g. Boeing 747-400) ‘A’ slot and vice versa to allow better utilizations for both north and south runway. The separation saved could be significant during busy hour if managed properly.
Frankfurt airport, even with its closely-spaced (500m) parallel runways, as well as several airports in the United States, have achieved higher processing rates through such a strategy. This may provide potential improvement to HKIA’s runway capacity as our runways become more congested. However, this would result in a more complicated ATC pattern and hence advanced equipment and extra manpower would be needed.
4.3.2 Enhanced ATC & Aircraft Equipment, Technology, Procedures and Manpower
Technology and human factors also play a decisive role in airport capacity improvement. Air traffic controllers in Hong Kong are generally considered highly skilled professionals and they form the core element of the ATM system. HKCAD’s workload has been increasing rapidly due to the rapid increase in the demand on our airspace by flights entering and leaving Hong Kong and Macau, plus the increase traffic going to and from China via the Hong Kong Flight Information Region (FIR). According to CAD, the en-route movements to/from China was more than four hundred each day. The current workload is substantially greater than originally anticipated while the head count of air traffic controllers has been frozen for many years. This human resource is an important determinant for airport capacity. CAD states that it normally takes seven years to train a student air traffic control officer into a full professional, and the international market for air traffic controllers has been tight and very competitive because of the global aviation demand. This is an area where additional efforts and attention can be useful if HKIA is to remain a center of regional and international aviation amid the growing demands of passengers and cargo in the region.
With the use of modern ATC/ATM equipment and advanced navigation-aids, air traffic controllers can provide more timely, effective and accurate communication with pilots. To cope with capacity constraints at major airports, ATMs in the US and Australia have introduced new technology such as the Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B). The ADS-B allows air traffic controllers to reduce separation in increasingly crowded skies. ADS-B differs from conventional radar in that it uses electronic equipment onboard an aircraft to automatically broadcast position, altitude, velocity and other data every second via digital datalink using a navigation system like GPS. In future, ADS-B data will also be used by other aircraft and controllers to show an aircraft’s position and altitude on display screens without the need for extensive radar coverage.
It is worth noting the recent decision by the HKSAR Government to invest HK$1.56 billion in a new ATM system. This system is schedule to come online in 2012. At the same time, CAD has begun looking at the options of satellite-based navigation aids (navaids). Around 20 student air traffic control officer will also be recruited annually for the next five years [CAD, 2007]. However, one should also note that ATM’s are continuously being improved and new technology will be adopted by progressive airports around the world. The relatively long lead time required to move to a new system versus the fast pace of the technological development in this area means that Hong Kong needs to be continuously exploring improvements to our system in order to maintain the competitiveness of our airport.
4.3.3 Expansion of Auxiliary Airside Facilities
Beside the flight separation standards, aircraft have to enter and leave the runway quickly, so that unnecessary delays will not occur. Many modern hubs often have four to six exits along their runways. This permits different types of aircraft to reach their nearest runway exits with the least amount of time. The location of runway exits plays a very significant role in runway capacity.
There are two main types of runway exits: Conventional and High Speed exits. A
conventional exit forms a 90° angle with the runway. It requires pilots to slow down the aircraft considerably (to 10 kts or 18 km/h) to make the tight turn. On the other hand, a high-speed exit is having an inclined layout along the runway’s direction. This permits the aircraft to vacate the runway rapidly, at speeds up to (50 kts or 92 km/h), by making a relatively high speed and smooth turn. Therefore, if mixed mode is used it would help utilizing the runway movement by allowing the landing aircraft to vacate more quickly and hence expediting the next departure. Revised movement strategies on the airside and how it may affect the benefit obtained from a high speed exit needs to be examined carefully with input from experts and pilots with good first hand information of the specific facilities.
Regarding taxiways, delays can arise due to inefficient taxiing patterns. Taxiway layout designs for airports, such as HKIA and Seoul Incheon, were based on the principle of uni-directional flow management for the achievement of minimizing taxiway conflicts and delays. The departure queue often causes severe delays at busy airports, including HKIA. The mixed-mode operation may alleviate the problem by diverting some aircraft to the other runway. The apron area can also occasionally be a constraining factor on the overall airside capacity. This points to the need for overall planning and optimization of the various elements on the airside so as to maximize the operational capacity of the airside system under varying conditions which the airport may be subjected to.
4.3.4 Peak Spreading
By spreading some of the demand from the peak period of the day to a less busy period, airport capacity can be improved. However, as airlines primarily schedule flights to meet their market demands and optimize their fleet utilization, they would aim at choosing slots of a particular time of the day to offer the best travel services for customers and balance resource utilization within its service network. Most airports experience their peak hours from 08:00 to 19:00 each day. For Hong Kong, the peak period occurs from 07:00 to 20:00 in summer (see Fig. 4.2). During this period, airport slots are basically full (for both departure and arrivals) [Cathay Pacific, 2007]. The situation is particularly worse on Tuesday and Friday. Airlines are usually reluctant (especially for hub-and-spokes legacy carriers which heavily depend on smooth and accurate transits from one flight to another on their networks) to re-organize their flight schedules, as this will bring inefficiencies to the airlines operation and can significantly affects the bottom line of their company. Thus, peak spreading is often easier said than done, as it involves the convoluted consideration of optimizations of the individual airlines schedules and interests. However, this approach may be applicable with less technical difficulty to freighter flights which usually operate on a 24-hour basis. The slot requests of LCCs and chartered services can also be more flexible.
4.3.5 Aircraft Size Restrictions
Airport authorities can consider measures to encourage airlines to use larger planes in their operations. As previously mentioned, aircraft generate vortices which affect aircraft flying behind. The smaller the aircraft relative to the preceding aircraft, the
more severe would be the impact of the wake vortice effects, thus requiring more separation distance between the aircraft. Hence, using similar size aircraft, or larger/wide-body type aircraft would minimize the required separation distance and enhance runway movement capacity.
However, the selection of aircraft type is mainly dictated by the operational characteristics of the aircraft for the routes to be flown, market demands, and economics. Because of numbers of seats provided, wide-body aircraft would have lower seat-kilometre costs than a small narrow-body aircraft. It will also have a higher operating hourly cost than a smaller aircraft due to its large size. Hence it would often form a question for the airline management on choosing the aircraft with lower seat-kilometre costs or the one with the lower trip costs.
Therefore, it is very unlikely that an airline will choose a B747-400 Jumbo for short-haul and low-capacity routes, as compared with an A320 or B737. On the other hand, this approach might be possible to impose on high capacity short-haul routes such as the Hong Kong- Taipei route. Thus, this approach to improve runway capacity will likely be limited to a very small amount of routes and airlines, while it is almost impossible to impose such an approach on short-haul low cost carriers (LCCs). Some would suggest that an airline could ease up slots congestion by combining two or three flights into one and using a large wide-body aircraft for the route. This will obviously affect the flexibility and services offered to their travelers (especially for business travelers). However, the use of enhanced procedures such as TEAM and the consideration of having mixed mode operation of the runways as discussed in 4.3.1 would be able to reduce the efficiencies caused by mixing different aircraft sizes in the arrival or departure queues. These considerations will become even more important as new generation large aircrafts such as the Airbus A380s begin to operate in HKIA.
4.4 Conclusions
This chapter has illustrated that with our current 54 movements/hour, HKIA will still has room to increase its capacity. It is estimated that, at best, the current HKIA will be able to sustain it’s operation until somewhere around 2013, assuming the rather conservative estimate of 3% growth in traffic by the AAHK without further enhancements. However, we must bear in mind that with the increasing movements of narrow-body aircraft, growing traffic demand and the introduction of A380 into service, HKIA is likely to experience a higher capacity demand from its airlines users. Hence we must prepare our airport for any future unpredictable demand. As our discussion shows, a new runway is not the only answer to the increasing runway demand. There are many ways to improve the runway capacity. Obviously, some measures are better than the others taken into the HKIA unique situation. Up to this stage, it seems that capacity enhancement through ATC technology, ATM approach, manpower and airspace usage would be practical measures to provide more capacity beyond this ultimate capacity in the medium term. The recent announcement from CAD on HKIA capacity enhancement had clearly illustrated the importance of these measures. Building new runway is clearly an option to provide more runway capacity. However, we must fully utilize our current runways beforehand.
Chapter 5 Selected Case Studies for Building New Runways
In this section, we will examine the building of new runways by several international airports. Their experience in dealing with environmental issues and opposition from the community can be valuable case studies for our consideration.
5.1 London Heathrow Airport third Runway
The Heathrow third runway idea was first officially suggested by the UK Department for Transports (DfT) White Paper under the title ‘The Future of Air Transport’ in December 2003, which aimed at providing a strategic framework for the development of airport capacity in the United Kingdom over the next 30 years. The UK Government agreed that additional capacities at Heathrow would generate the largest direct economic benefits of any new runway options. The Oxford Economic Forecasting Studies, a UK-based research centre, estimated that even a relatively short third runway could add ￡7bn to the UK economy by 2030 [BBC, 2006].
The demand for Heathrow has been extremely strong. It is in fact the busiest international airport in the world in terms of international passengers’ throughput. Regarding total passengers movement, it ranks top 3 in the world and number 14 in terms of aircraft movements. The airport itself experiences the most aircraft movements in the world for an airport with only two runways [ACI, ATW, 2007]. Heathrow has two parallel runways running east-west, with four terminals. It handled 477,029 movements in 2006 [ ACI, 2007]. Despite the recent Terminal 5 development, major airlines at Heathrow, in particular British Airways, have long advocated for a third full-length runway at Heathrow. Europe has long been a heavy battleground for hubs, while Heathrow has seen relatively less development as compared to nearby competitors such as Frankfurt with 3 runways, Paris with 4 runways, and Amsterdam with 6 runways (see Table 5.1). Obviously, this has weakened London’s competitiveness as an aviation hub. A key proposal of the White Paper was that a third runway would be built at Heathrow by 2020, provided that the new runway would meet targets on environmental issues such as aircraft noise, traffic congestion and pollution [DfT, 2003].
Pax (000) Cargo (000, tons) Aircraft Movement No. of runways Major future development
Amsterdam Schipol (AMS) Frankfurt (FRA) 42,541 (+6.5%) 51,100 (+5.6%) 1,421 (+8.7%) 1,839 (+11%) 431,000 (+3.4%) 477,500 (+4%) 6 3 Plans already exist for terminal expansion and new runway. New maintenance hanger for Lufthansa’s A380, New runway and terminal addition
at Terminal 3; 75
aircraft stands &
associated taxiways. All together would cost Euro 3.4 billion.
London 67,000 1,325 469.763 2 Terminal 5 due
Heathrow (LHR) (+6.2%) (+8.3%) (+2.8%) opening in mid-2008. A new 87m control
tower. Costing ￡4.2 billion.
Paris Roissy-Charles de Gaulle (CDG) 51,000 (+5.5%) 1,637 (+9.4%) 516.457 (n/a) 4 Rebuild new terminal 2E, Star alliance and Aeroports de Paris agreement on building a minihub at Terminal
1. Modernization of the
31-year old T1 (cost around
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