HK Airport Authority gains record annual profit

Airport Authority (AA) Hong Kong announced an all-time-high profit attributable to shareholder of 1. 6 billion HK dollars (205 million U.S. dollars) for the year ended March 31, 2006, up 33 percent from the same period last year.

Turnover grew 10 percent to 7.08 billion HK dollars (908 million U.S. dollars), said an AA press release on Wednesday.

Commenting on Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA)'s financial and operational performances, Chief Executive Officer of the Airport Authority David Pang said, "While HKIA benefited from the strong market for air transport, it takes a safe, secure and consistently well-run operation to fully exploit the potential of the robust market environment."

He said, the operating expenses have remained consistently flat over the last five years despite strong annual growth in revenue close to 8 percent, reflecting well on the Airport Authority's ability to effectively control expenses.

"HKIA remains the world's fifth busiest airport in terms of international traveler throughput, and has been the busiest international cargo airport for the last decade. During the year under review, we also welcomed eight new scheduled carriers to our network. HKIA now offers flights from about 80 airlines servicing to more than 140 destinations worldwide," added Pang.

Pang said, the Airport Authority is undergoing a wide-ranging study to re-examine HKIA's growth strategies by critically assessing the demand, supply and competition/cooperation dynamics that the airport will face over the next two decades.

Looking forward, Pang remains positive on the outlook as HKIA would continue to benefit from the exponential growth in the Chinese mainland's burgeoning economy and air traffic.

"I am confident that Chinese mainland's ever-growing aviation market will provide HKIA with enormous growth momentum for the years to come. We will continue to explore new opportunities and bring added value to Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland by strengthening the competitiveness of HKIA and integrating with airports on the mainland," said Pang.

Source: Xinhua