The Hong Kong Page

Gleetings from Hong Kong.

Hong Kong harbour sees an amazing variety of waterborne traffic.

Chek Lap Kok-up

Hong Kong's new airport opened to great fanfare and hype on July 6th 1998, after the hype, the reality, a list of faults and horror stories a mile long, now after two weeks things are getting steadily better but the airport is unlikely to be at the standard of the old airport at Kai Tak for some time.

Here is the list of failures as detailed in the local press:-

Baggage system unreliable, some people waited up to 5 hours for their bags, outgoing baggage left behind.
Air bridges inoperable, several aircraft waited 2 hours to dock.
Cargo terminal totally failed, HACTL moved back to Kai Tak after 2 days.
Erratic operation of the Airport Express Railway and defective ticketing machines (oops thats our bit).
Toilets not working or flooded and unsanitary (not unusual for Hong Kong).
Departure and arrival information system giving wrong information, then no information.
A whole list of minor niggles.

An early arrival on Day 1 at Chek Lap Kok, note the construction cranes, the airport is still not actually finished.

Things can only get better.

The landing at the old airport at Kai Tak was known as the most thrilling approach in the world, click here to see why.

21st June 1998, 1:30pm, this is the nearest thing I've seen to a major disaster. A Malasian Airlines pilot screws up his landing big-time at Kai Tak, the aircraft stopped safely before the end of the runway (and Victoria Harbour) a tribute to the engineers at Boeing, but the passengers and crew discovered the colour of adrenalin. With only two weeks to go before the new airport opened a major shunt is just what Hong Kong did not need.

Other unrelated news

The clamp down on bus drivers who exeed speed limits and overload their vehicles has done little to curb the spate of bus accidents, a light bus driver was killed recently when he picked an argument with a container truck, the truck won. An article in The South China Morning Post carried the headline "Bus driver found to be legally blind" he has apparently now retired, how many more are there like him? I thought Korean bus drivers were crazy (see the Seoul Page) but I won't go on a bus here at present.

Click HERE and ALSO HERE for some pictures of "Hongkers".

Some interesting links

Click for the Mass Transit Railway Corporation the operator of the Airport Express Line.

Go here for the new Hong Kong Airport at Chek Lap Kok the airport opened on July 6th 1998.

A visit to Hong Kong Government's site will tell you about all sorts of useful things.

Click HERE to return to Crossy's homepage.