Ready for takeoff: Aircraft movements grew 7.9%, to 22,290 in February.

Busy passenger traffic during the Lunar New Year holiday has helped set a new record in aircraft movements in February at Hong Kong International Airport.

February saw aircraft movements grow 7.9% from a year earlier, to 22,290. On February 16 - two days before Lunar New Year Day - 872 movements were recorded.

Passenger and cargo throughput for the month reached 3.63 million and 230,000 tonnes, up 10.8% and 2.6% over the same period last year.

In the past 12 months, passenger and cargo throughput reached 44.82 million and 3.59 million tonnes, representing year-on-year rises of 8.3% and 4.1%. There were 282, 535 aircraft movements, 5.5% higher than the same period in 2005-06.

Airport Authority airport management director Howard Eng said a new lead-in taxiway, J1A, has been built to provide greater flexibility for air-traffic controllers in sequencing departing aircraft, which boosted the on-time performance of departure flights.

The new taxiway is located on the west side of the south runway and will start operating in late March. It was part of the HK$4.5 billion facilities and capacity-enhancement projects launched in 2006.