I found this thread looking into the 3rd runway consultation thread, I was hoping any of your learned gentlemen could help me with these questions.

I was wondering how a 3rd runway will benefit HKIA when it does not seem to make full utility of its existing 2 runways? What difference does it make whether Hong Kong adds a 3rd, or 4th, or 10th runway when HKIA airport cannot but land one plane-at-a-time? In other words, irregardless of the 2 runways existing, only one runway is ever used for either take-offs or landing at-a-time, unlike many other airports where I have witnessed regular tandem use of the runways, e.a., traffic arriving and departing from runways simultaneously. How does a 3rd runway change that equation?

This has apparently nothing to do with ground capacity problems and everything with airspace allotment, and unless I'm wrong, I don't believe any amount of landfilling will resolve the airspace congestion issue and I haven't heard of any initiatives by the SAR government to engage China to resolve airspace restrictions imposed on Hong Kong.

One of the contributors in this thread mentioned the Macau airport in passing... which is of interest to me since the Macau Airport is essentially a perfectly serviceable runway that has in the past processed Antonov An-124 aircraft to dispel any notions that it would not be suited for the diversion of increased cargo traffic to the Macua facility, if such "growth" were to occur at all. Why is it inconceivable to consider routing more cargo through the Macau facility at all?

Finally, I must confess to being a perpetual growth skeptic, since I do not see much of a future for the continued air handling of rubber dog poo, as the cargo doggies so fondly refer to it, when oil prices seem intent on parking permanently above $100-a-barrel or more.

In short... the Pearl River estuary in fact has 3 existing perfectly usable runways which in fact are really not being put to optimum use in the first place. How will adding an additional runway change anything?

I simply smell another construction boondoggle.