Cathay Pacific Airways, which resumed work on its new Cargo Terminal in June after a two years postponement due to the global recession, recently staged an event at Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA) to highlight the state-of-the-art features of the new facility.

In March 2008, the Airport Authority awarded Cathay Pacific Services Ltd (CPSL), a wholly owned subsidiary of the airline, the 20-year franchise to invest in, design, construct and operate the new air cargo terminal with a development cost of about HK$5.5 billion. The facility, scheduled to begin operations in early 2013, will occupy a site of nearly 11 hectares in the airport’s cargo area.

Speaking at the event, Cathay CEO Tony Tyler said: “Hong Kong’s position as the world’s leading international airfreight hub is a remarkable achievement, but we cannot afford to take our preeminent position for granted. A concerted effort to improve Hong Kong’s capacity and competitiveness is needed if we are to face up to growing competition from other airports in the region.”

HKIA, the world’s busiest in terms of international cargo, aims to handle eight million tonnes of cargo by 2025, compared with 3.35 million tonnes last year. The cargo terminal’s first phase could increase the cargo handling capacity at Chek Lap Kok by 50 per cent to 7.4 million tonnes a year.

The cargo terminal, with a designed capacity of 2.6 million tonnes a year, has two warehouse floors to handle import cargo or other non-palletised export shipment. Workstations will be organised in a way that allows workers can to build up or breakdown units in the most efficient manner. The terminal’s ground floor will have two lanes with 57 airside interfaces for import and export operations.

All the pillars for CT1 – the ground floor of the terminal – are already built. Work will now focus on building the floors of CT2 – the first level – which will provide weatherproofing for CT1 and enable the first phase of installation work for the materials handling systems (MHS) to begin.”