Hong Kong airport ‘confident’ of clearing backlog of flights by Tuesday

Hong Kong’s airport has expressed confidence about clearing a backlog of flights caused by Typhoon Wipha in two days as thousands of passengers streamed into its terminals to board flights delayed by the extreme weather.

As the storm left the city, the Airport Authority said it expected to handle 1,076 flights arriving and departing on Monday.

The typhoon caused a backlog of 500 cancelled flights, affecting about 100,000 passengers.

“Today’s operations should run very smoothly, and we are confident we’ll have all travellers affected by the typhoon handled by tomorrow,” the authority’s executive director, Steven Yiu Siu-chung, said.

At around 6.45am on Monday, nearly two hours after the Observatory lifted all tropical cyclone warning signals, there was a serious jam along Airport Road on the stretch from Chek Lap Kok Fire Station to Terminal 1. It prompted some cabbies to divert to Regal Airport Hotel to drop their passengers off there instead.

The Transport Department also warned of heavy traffic near the Hong Kong International Airport, calling on motorists to use the drop-off area at car park 1. It reminded members of the public to allow sufficient time for their journey, or consider taking the Airport Express and buses instead.