CHINA. Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA) posted a -97.5% year-on-year fall in passenger traffic numbers to just 47,000 as the comparison with the previous period underlined the terrible impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Flight movements reached 8,475, down -53.0%.
Combining the figures for the first two months of this year, which eliminates the effect of Chinese New Year falling in different months in 2020 and 2021, HKIA served 118,000 passengers and saw 19,840 flight movements, reporting declines of -98.4% and -61.3%, respectively.
The year-on-year comparisons are distorted by the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic, then at an early stage, only had a modest -9.1% impact on January 2020 traffic. By February 2020 the fall had steepened to -68.0% and after that every remaining month saw a disastrous slump of more than -97% over the comparitive period.
The March decline therefore will be much more modest and observers are watching closely to see whether the Hong Kong and Singapore authorities reimplement the planned Air Travel Bubble, which was thwarted at the last-minute in late 2020.
