Press Release

Issued by Asian Business Aviation Association.

August 13, 2018

AsBAA first formed a slot co-ordination quarterly meeting in Hong Kong with the Hong Kong Civil Aviation Department and Hong Kong Airport Authority authorities in 2016. It did this to give its members and industry stakeholders a voice to engage with the regulators and airport authorities. The association is encouraged to announce the following breakthrough which has been announced by HKCAD and the slot coordination office:

"The number of slots available for GA/BA operations between 1600-2059UTC will increase from four slots daily to six slots daily.

These six slots will be made available to all aircraft types that are not currently exempted from the Noise Quota Count Pilot Scheme. This expands the current list of aircraft types given in the "Notice from Hong Kong Schedule Coordination Office regarding Night and Ad-hoc Slots" issued on 13 Sep 2017 and is inclusive of the four daily slots currently available for the same hours of operation as given in The Notice.

The application procedure for these six slots will be the same as that for the four daily slots currently available as given in The Notice through the “Ask me” function on the OCS software.

The above are provided on a trial and temporary basis and are subject to continuous review jointly by AAHK and HKSCO. The procedures will be effective from 0000 UTC on 8 August 2018 until 2359 UTC on 7 October 2018.

In the meantime, we are working with the Airport Authority HK (AAHK) in making this exemption a permanent solution for the business aviation community beyond the current temporary 7 October 2018 end date."

“We are delighted to receive this much-welcomed news from the HKCAD and HKAA," said Phil Balmer vice chairman and head of the Hong Kong Chapter AsBAA. "Pushing for our fair share of slots has been a key priority for AsBAA since the lobbying efforts began in 2016. We believe in working with the authorities to find innovative solutions that allow business aviation to grow. It has been evidenced that business aviation is an economic driver, job creator, efficiency tool and magnet for investment into Hong Kong.

"AsBAA's members have reported a much-improved operational environment in 2018. Business aviation movements have increased by 25% in the first six months and AsBAA predicts a year-end increase of around 28% over 2017, meaning that the total movements will be slightly higher than 2016 at approximately 8,595. Thousands of jobs exist directly and indirectly from this industry. In addition, as evidenced at the recent AsBAA Discovery summer camps, there is strong interest from the next generation to learn more about careers in business aviation such an engineering, marketing, finance, legal, service and many others. As such, AsBAA continues to advocate that the industry should be provided with a fair percentage of runway slots as capacity is added with room to grow its infrastructure needs."