The Air Traffic Management Bureau of the Civil Aviation Administration of China, the Civil Aviation Department and the Civil Aviation Authority of Macau held the Pearl River Delta Region Air Traffic Management Planning and Implementation Tripartite Working Group meeting on December 8 and 9 in Changsha.
Delegations led by the Director-General of the Air Traffic Management Bureau Che Jinjun, the Director-General of Civil Aviation Simon Li and the President of the Civil Aviation Authority of Macau Chan Weng-hong attended the meeting to discuss regional airspace enhancement measures and ways to improve flight delays.
The meeting was convened in accordance with an agreement signed in May on establishing a strengthened liaison mechanism, which put in place a regular meeting mechanism to enhance co-operation and exchange among the civil aviation authorities of the three sides.
With regard to the management and utilisation of regional airspace resources, the Mainland, Hong Kong and Macau will continue to promote synergy and foster co-operation through the tripartite co-ordination mechanism, to achieve the ultimate target of implementing the Pearl River Delta Region Air Traffic Management Planning & Implementation Plan progressively.
It would bring about healthy and orderly development of the airports in the region and also enable the three-runway system of the Hong Kong International Airport to maximise its potential, reaching the target runway capacity of 102 air traffic movements per hour.
The meeting also agreed to the formation of the Air Traffic Flow Management Group to study measures to mitigate flight delay.
Mr Li expressed his gratitude to the Mainland and Macau for support from the relevant parties in the operation of the new air traffic management system in Hong Kong.
Mr Che noted that during the transition to the new system in Hong Kong the air traffic control operations between the Mainland and Hong Kong were very smooth. He understood that, given the complexity of the new system, teething problems are rather inevitable and shared that the Mainland had a similar experience before.
