Originally Posted by
Marco Polo
well Percy look at reality : it means WE the HK taxpayers pay and CX gets richer
http://www.hongkongairport.com/eng/p...Statements.pdf
http://www.legco.gov.hk/yr04-05/engl...cb1-1591-e.pdf
the cost for the 3rd runway and terminal is estimated at HK$ 136.2 billion at projected future construction cost.
The HK airport total profit in the past year was HK$ 4.038 billion.
Perhaps a Flyertalk accountant can work out how long it would take the airport to repay the capital sum given depreciation / projected landing charge increase etc ?
A simplistic calculation would be 136 / 4 = 34 years by which time of course they would be out of capacity and would already need the 4th runway and by then Bao’An will probably have 6 runways and the SAR , given the completion date years hence +34 will be past its 2047 Mainland reunification date .
only FS John Tsang would rate that a good deal but he screwed up everything else already on his decision changing U turn Budget.
It's $86.2B at today's costs and HK$136.2B at completed costs (i.e. after 10 years' cumulative inflation)
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_d...pe=3&pp_cat=30
HKAA's profits are in today's prices so it should be the 86.2B we should be comparing to rather than the headline 136.2B. Alternatively inflate HKAA's 4B profit by 136/86 = $6.3B
Either way you're going to get simple payback of 86.2/4 = 21.6 years. Runways last 25 years so that's OK
http://www.hongkongairport.com/eng/p...ts.pdf#page=39
Of course that payback calculation will be criticised.
1. Shouldn't use the whole of HKAA profit - the current place has two runways plus infrastructure. Assuming we proportionally increase the number of planes by increasing runways without need to build more parking bays (i.e. T1 and T2 as is can cope), then the third runway should only generate 2B profit on its own; payback inreases to 43 years.
2. I suspect as a fully-governmment owned statutory body, HKAA isn't charging as much as it could for landing fees. I'm not sure if any of the PRD airports are - even though SZN and CAN are owned by A-share companies, I don't think they can set tariffs on their own (severe state price control).
2a. Let's use another HK example - the Cross Harbour Tunnel charges $20 for cars whereas the Citic Pacific-owned EHT costs $25 and WHF costs $50 (
http://www.td.gov.hk/en/transport_in...ges/index.html). Taking the average of the two Citic Pacific tunnels (37.5%) this represents a 87.5% premium. Assuming HKAA can also charge the same premium if privatised (and demand is inelastic - airlines and passengers keep flying as before) - payback is reduced to 23 years. Still well within the expected life of the runway.
After my after-dinner back of napkin calculations, the runway might still be able to pay for itself.