Hong Kong airport one place, two inspections? In-depth reports by Hong Kong media

Civil Aviation Resource Network March 14, 2022 news: According to the Hong Kong media "Hong Kong 01" report, the national "two sessions" closed on Friday (March 11), during which the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference Standing Committee Tang Yingnian, Liu Changle, national committee member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference Huang Chubiao and other 140 people jointly signed a proposal "on the implementation of "one place, two inspections" at Hong Kong International Airport, hoping that Hong Kong Airport will follow the west Kowloon high-speed rail station to implement "one place, two inspections" to establish a passenger diversion mechanism. It is undeniable that "one place, two inspections" does help Hong Kong Airport seamlessly access the national air network, thereby activating the potential of the inland shipping market; however, the main bottleneck of Hong Kong Airport is not whether there is "one place, two inspections", but the homogenization competition of the five major airports in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, which urgently needs more effective integrated development.

"Two places, two inspections" is time-consuming, inefficient and less waypoints

As soon as the "one place, two inspections" proposal of Hong Kong Airport came out, some media described Hong Kong Airport as becoming "half" mainland airports, but the statement was unfair and blurred the focus. The current "two inspections" at Hong Kong Airport is because under the "one country, two systems" principle, Hong Kong belongs to areas outside China, and mainland passengers need to go through the local ports to go through the exit formalities, take the outbound flight, and then go through the entry formalities after arriving at the Hong Kong airport port, in order to enter Hong Kong, and vice versa; if the "one place, two inspections" are implemented, that is, directly in the air, land and sea port areas of the Hong Kong airport, at the same time set up adjacent mainland port areas and Hong Kong port areas, and then the mainland and Hong Kong law enforcement personnel will conduct customs clearance inspections for passengers traveling between the two places. Immigration formalities.

From the perspective of direct effect, "one place, two inspections" has two major benefits for Hong Kong airports. First of all, for passengers, it is necessary to improve the efficiency of passing inspections from the mainland to Hong Kong, because passengers can complete the customs clearance procedures that previously needed to be handled in mainland Hong Kong and Hong Kong respectively, which is expected to greatly reduce queuing time and shorten the customs clearance process. Second, for Hong Kong Airport, the number of mainland waypoints will be increased. For example, according to Huang Chubiao, chairman of Shenzhen East Sea Airlines, who founded Greater Bay Area Airlines, only 37 mainland cities can fly directly to Hong Kong, and theoretically can only establish routes with 83 mainland airports, and under the "one place, two inspections", many small city airports in the mainland that have not set up "air ports" can also fly directly to Hong Kong.

This is indeed attractive to Hong Kong Airport, which has long been in a bottleneck of development. Because in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, the advantages and disadvantages of Hong Kong Airport are obvious, on the one hand, it has 140 international waypoints, which in Huang Chubiao's words is "more than the sum of international waypoints of other airports in the Greater Bay Area"; on the other hand, there are fewer waypoints in the mainland, and the economic impact of this disadvantage has been geometrically "amplified" in the new crown virus epidemic. The ongoing epidemic in Hong Kong, coupled with the different quarantine and air traffic control measures in various places, the domestic and international passenger traffic at Hong Kong Airport has almost fallen into a standstill, with passenger traffic falling from 71.5 million passengers in 2019 (2019) to 1.4 million passengers in 2021, and even Cathay DragonAir, which is of great hong Kong significance, will terminate the suspension; but at the same time, due to the national stabilization of the epidemic, the main airports in mainland cities in the Greater Bay Area have relied on mainland routes to recover strongly. For example, Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport, which carried 73 million passengers in 2019, has recovered to 40.26 million passengers by 2021 – still below pre-epidemic levels, but it is already the "first in the country" under the new crown norm.

"One place, two inspections" is expected to reverse the disadvantages of Hong Kong airports. Huang Huihong, associate professor of the Department of Supply Chain and Information Management of Hang Seng University of Hong Kong, analyzed the feasibility of implementing "one place, two inspections" at Hong Kong Airport: "The high-speed rail station has implemented "one place, two inspections", which have been straightened out in terms of legal provisions and implementation plans, and Hong Kong Airport can copy it. On the other hand, the airport is building a new terminal and runway, which can directly add the design of "one place, two inspections" in the middle and late stages of construction. Policies, hardware, and time can all be cooperated. According to the "Hong Kong International Airport", "one place, two inspections" research group led by Huang Chubiao, if the "one place, two inspections" can be implemented, without considering air logistics, it will directly or indirectly contribute more than 18 billion yuan of passenger traffic output value to Hong Kong Airport, and can also drive more than 15.2 billion US dollars of related industries and create at least 30,000 jobs.

The five major airports in the region have been caught in homogeneous competition

It is true that from the narrow Hong Kong standard, "one place, two inspections" can open up new markets for Hong Kong airports, but from the perspective of the sustainable development of the aviation industry in the Greater Bay Area, if there is a slight difference in "one place, two inspections", it may deepen the vicious competition in the region.

The "one place, two inspections" of Hong Kong airport means that the number of mainland routes is increased, which inevitably duplicates the Shenzhen airport adjacent to the mainland. Huang Huihong pointed out that the high degree of duplication of routes will aggravate the congestion of airspace, while the waypoints and passenger volume of major airports in the Greater Bay Area are highly repetitive, and the homogenization competition is serious, which has existed in the past and has not yet been solved.

The so-called "airspace congestion" is that the airspace resources in the Pearl River Delta region are already very tight. It is called "the most complex airspace in the world", because it is uniformly managed by the national military, only a small part of it is open for civil aviation use, and based on the different airspace control standards of Guangzhou, Zhuhai and Hong Kong, it is divided into three airspace control areas, and then there is a quarantine protection area, and the available airspace is very narrow; if the Hong Kong airport implements "one place, two inspections" and adds more mainland routes, the airspace resources will only increase.

Huang Huihong and other scholars have published an empirical study, "Spatial Tracking Model for Measuring the Relationship between Airports in the Multi-Airport Area" (hereinafter referred to as the "Model"), taking the Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Macao airports in the Pearl River Delta as examples to study the competitive relationship and spillover effects between airports in the region. The research team found that the duplication of routes between Hong Kong airport and mainland airports is as high as 60% to 70%, which is "a good exaggerated number". For comparison, London is also a multi-airport area with six airports, including two international airports, and the overall passenger flow is similar to that of the Greater Bay Area, "In terms of flight destinations, the repetition of the two major airports of Ximeiji Airport and Jiyu Airport is 40% or less." ”

The Model deduces that under the existing competitive landscape, any airport in the above four major airports adds one more waypoint or one more overlapping route, which will have a direct and indirect negative impact on the surrounding airports. The more waypoints there are, the higher the passenger traffic that the airport can attract, and the higher the airport capacity, but the capacity of other airports in the region will be subject to indirect negative spillover effects. The study also pointed out that the impact of Hong Kong's increased number of waypoints is the largest of the four airports. According to the study, "increasing the number of waypoints is the main weapon of competition at the pearl river delta airports".

The premise of "one place, two inspections" is the integration of interests

The dilemma is not completely insoluble. Guangzhou civil aviation scholar Qi Qi wrote an article in 2015 entitled "A Brief Analysis of the Construction of the Pearl River Delta Collaborative Aviation System and the Role of Hong Kong Airport", which is worth referencing. The article pointed out that the five major airports in the Pearl River Delta will continue to increase the number of waypoints and voyages, and will continue to expand infrastructure, but "the airspace of the Pearl River Delta is fixed and unchanged", if the air traffic control technology is not innovated, the available airspace is more like a "zero-sum game between one and the other". Qi Qi stressed: "At present, this kind of separate strategic goal based on the respective development requirements of the five major airports has become the biggest obstacle to the sustainable development of Aviation in the Pearl River Delta. ”

Hong Kong 01 also wrote an in-depth report on the aviation prospects of the Greater Bay Area in 2019, pointing out that in view of the shortage of aviation resources and serious competition in the region, it advocates the integration of the interests and resources of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Zhuhai and Macao Airports to form the central airport of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area through operation management contracts, mergers and acquisitions or equity swaps, and shares the "big cake" of the integration of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Zhuhai and Macao Airports - the two major shipping buildings of the central airport of Hong Kong-Shenzhen Airport are connected by fast tracks, the former mainly serves international routes, the latter mainly domestic flights, and Macao develops a business jet hub Zhuhai, on the other hand, shares the cargo and becomes a leading training base for aviation professionals in Hong Kong.

Fortunately, central and Hong Kong and Macao officials have also begun to re-plan the airspace. In November last year, officials from the Civil Aviation Administration of China, the Civil Aviation Department of Hong Kong and the Civil Aviation Authority of Macau met to discuss the airspace planning of the airport cluster in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. Wong also said that the mainland promised that when the third runway of Hong Kong Airport is completed, it will moderately open more airspace to Hong Kong.

However, the redrawing of airspace can only alleviate congestion and will not solve the vicious competition at airports in the region. Under the premise of lack of integration of interests, unilaterally implementing "one place, two inspections" at Hong Kong airports is probably "exterminating" to other airports.

Integrating aviation resources in the region is even more critical

Based on the above discussion, looking back at the proposals of Huang Chubiao, Tang Yingnian and others, it is inevitable to feel that there are some "tigers and tails". The proposal puts forward 5 specific suggestions on "one place, two inspections", including legally drawing on the experience of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong high-speed railway and adopting a "three-step" procedure; establishing a corresponding passenger diversion mechanism; building the "one place, two inspections" port area into a patriotic and patriotic theme education base, building the land port and shore area into an integrated patriotic and patriotic theme education base, and closely integrating the customs clearance channel with the visiting route. In general, this proposal is only to move the "one place, two inspections" of high-speed rail to Hong Kong Airport, but it does not consider factors such as aviation competition and airport cooperation in the region, and instead begins to discuss the development of cultural tourism, which makes people feel that some "find the wrong focus".

In fact, as early as 20 years ago, some people advocated that the airports in the region "turn enemies into friends" and seek common survival. In June 2001, the then Chairman of the Airport Authority of Hong Kong, Fung Kwok-king, revealed in an exclusive interview with the Letter that the Hong Kong International Airport was seeking to form alliances with other airports in the Pearl River Delta, which did not exclude cooperation through operation management contracts, mergers and acquisitions or equity swaps. Later, the Hong Kong International Airport took the initiative to promote the five major airports in the region to take turns to host the "Pearl River Delta Five Airports Seminar" (A5), but due to conflicts of interest and mutual vigilance, the A5 did not achieve substantive results.

Over the past 20 years, A5 has competed with each other, competed continuously, and even produced negative economic effects, which will inevitably only lead to a "dead end" in the long run. It is worth mentioning that Hui Hanzhong, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference of the Hong Kong Region who now supports the "one place, two inspections" proposal, served as the chief executive of the Airport Authority of Hong Kong from 2007 to 2014, and the most criticized thing during his tenure is to overestimate the durability of Hong Kong's advantages and underestimate the harm of disadvantages, believing that the rise and expansion of Guangzhou and Shenzhen airports will not threaten the development of Hong Kong airports, and failing to understand the importance of integrating interests and division of labor. Nowadays, as a "big brother", Hong Kong Airport should take the initiative to invite other airport authorities to return to the round table to explore the possibility of cooperation.

"The "cake" of the Greater Bay Area, with a population of 70 million, Hong Kong Airport is definitely "nibbling", and with the development of the regional economy, there is definitely a lot of room for cooperation. Huang Huihong analyzed the necessity of cooperation between Hong Kong Airport and mainland airports and airlines from the perspective of local conditions and aviation models, stressing that "and the Greater Bay Area should not have only one international airport." ”

As far as the local aviation industry is concerned, Huang Huihong said that even if the "three runs" are completed, the capacity of Hong Kong Airport will be saturated in the next eight to ten years, and the possibility of Hong Kong building a second airport or a fourth runway is very small, "In this case, there is actually a lot of room to cooperate with the two major airports in the mainland, namely Guangzhou and Shenzhen airports, because their hardware is enough to cooperate with Hong Kong." ”

In terms of aviation mode, Huang Huihong pointed out that with the rise of "low-cost aviation", the current world air transport model is changing, and low-cost airlines are constantly exploring some short-distance markets, the attractiveness of first-tier airports and international aviation hubs has declined, while the attractiveness of second-tier airports has improved. ”

As far as the proposal of "one place, two inspections" is concerned, Huang Huihong believes that it can indeed reduce the barriers to entry and exit of personnel, promote cooperation between airports in the Greater Bay Area, and create possibilities for cross-border airport transfers; however, there are still many details to be solved, such as land transportation connections, fast transit channels, and optimization of baggage systems.

"These problems are not well done at Guangzhou Airport, Shenzhen Airport, and even Hong Kong Airport." Huang Huihong recalled her experience of transiting from London to Beijing through the Hong Kong airport, during which she had to go through immigration formalities and pick up checked luggage before returning to the airport, re-entering the immigration procedures, and boarding the next flight, which was complicated and time-consuming. "Can airports build some facilities and passages so that passengers who are only transiting rather than entering and leaving the country do not need to take their luggage and pass quickly?" Huang Huihong stressed that the optimization of infrastructure construction and the coordination between airlines require airport authorities to take the initiative.