Smart Departure at HKIA
 

You missed that, strangely, the UK is listed as "Britain".

Which is strange as I've put down British as nationality on HK government forms, only to have to change to "UK". :rolleyes:

Is this available to anyone with a passport from a country on the list?

My boss does not have echannel and has been using this system for the past several months.

Yes, everyone on the list can use it for departure, no registration required. Note that the passport slot is fussy and not well-designed: sometimes you have to make several tries. The Mainland machine is more reliable and user-friendly.

Excellent.

Is the machine easy to spot? Where is it located? I'll be flying Korean Air next week, so I'll be in T1.

Instead of heading to a gate with a guy at a counter, just head to one with the machine. You put your passport data page into the scanner -- like I said, the fit is awkward and it may take a few tries (press down on the page) -- then the gate opens and you stand on the marked area to have your photo taken. If everything matches, the next gate opens and you're out. Don't know what happens if the machine thinks there's not a match, but I assume you won't be stuck in the photo booth for eternity and miss your flight.

There is some kind of notification to the HKIS agent that the person stuck at the closed gate has issues.

The way eChannel gates work is that there is a HKIS agent in the immediate vicinity of the gates, and if there's an issue, they're there within seconds. It's not as if they have to come from a back office or from behind a counter. Also, they have a PDA in their hand which displays details of the traveler's history and what the problem is that is preventing the gate from opening on its own. In many cases, it takes them all of 1 second to look at the traveler, glance at the PDA, and decide it's okay. Then they hit a key on the PDA and the gate opens. It's extremely efficient. I would assume that a similar setup is in place for Smart Departure.

I tried it for the first time last week, could not get it to work, eventually went to the manned stand.

Oh, this is good to know! I've done this in Europe at FRA and AMS over the past year on a US Passport, which definitely saved me some time.
The HKG departure immigration has never been *that* long of a line, but at least it's an option.
The bigger issue IME has been at arrivals immigration (have waited an hour before :mad:), and I suppose nothing there has changed? Unfortunately it's been a bunch of years since I've traveled frequently enough to HKG to qualify for the HKIA Frequent Visitor card. :(

A perennial problem ... I find, UK, Britain, Great Britain and England all used interchangeably in various application forms across the world.

That program has been discontinued for a long time...

Not English...be careful with people like Scottish or Irish...:p

Ah the joys of Britain!