do people find themselves using remote gates more often at HKIA now with CX/KA ? (i.e. the plane parks not at a normal gate but requires you to take the "bus" to get to the terminal)

I have done 3 roundtrips HKG-PVG-HKG on KA the past month or so, and for ALL the 3 PVG-HKG flights, we parked at remote gates and then need to take the bus. for the past 2 times I thought it's because it's an A320 and so there's not too many pax, but today even with an A330 it's the same.

is it cheaper for KA to do this than using a normal gate ? i.e. HKIA charges more for the use of a normal gate (so as to balance demand) ? or is it just that all the gates are being used ? although I'm not too convinced about the latter because this didn't happen that often before when economy was good / flight frequency was high...now so many airlines have cut frequencies and CX/KA themselves cutting many flights every day too, the airport shouldn't be that busy now?