Busy passenger traffic during the Lunar New Year holiday in February has set a new record in aircraft movements at Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA). In February, according to the Airport Authority, aircraft movements grew 7.9% over February last year, reaching 22,290 movements. A record of 872 movements was set on 16 February, two days before the Lunar New Year Day.

Air cargo throughput for the month reached 230,000 tonnes, up 2.6% over the corresponding period last year. In the past 12 months, cargo throughput reached 3.59 million tonnes, representing year-on-year increase of 4.1%. Aircraft movements were 282,535, a rise of 5.5% over the same period in 2005/06.

New facilities are being built to meet future demand according to Airport Authority Airport Management Director Howard Eng. "A new lead-in taxiway, J1A, has been built to provide greater flexibility for air traffic controllers in sequencing departing aircraft, thus boosting the on-time performance of departure flights at HKIA. The new taxiway is part of the HK$4.5 billion facilities and capacity enhancement projects that we embarked on in 2006." Lead-in taxiways are paths for aircraft to get onto the runways for departure. The J1A lead-in taxiway is located on the west side of the South Runway and will commence operation in late March.