Originally Posted by SJC
That's exactly the reason. I go through HKG a lot. Quite a few passengers, especially those who do not travel frequently, think as long as they make it to the aircraft by departure time, not 20 minutes prior to departure, they are ok. In HKG, you'll see quite a few ground staff roaming around trying to locate those passengers, and the frequent paging of missing passengers by name through the airport PA system in 3 languages (English, Mandarin and Cantonese).
It's kinda hard to blame them, honestly - the shopping at the HKG airport has gotten insanely extensively in the past year since SARS... even casual/budget local clothing chain Giordano has set up shops inside the terminal!
I've also seen on several occasions - people buying luggage just so they can put their new purchases inside them, instead of having to carry separate plastic shopping bags. Now *that's* impulse buying!