Site of the Hong Kong Chek Lap Kok Terminal

The construction of Hong Kong's new airport terminal represented an unique geographical and engineering challenge. Since there were no sufficient amount of flat land available in the territory of Hong Kong, a 1,250 hectares island had to be created from scratch. Road and rail connections, including a number of bridges were also built to connect the airport to Kowloon and Hong Kong island, located about 34 km to the southwest. A light rail system links the airport terminal to downtown Hong Kong in about 23 minutes. The airport site was designed to jointly handle freight and passengers. The airport could ultimately handle about 87 million passengers per year but its current capacity is about 40 million passengers per year. Chek Lap Kok opened in July 1998 and represents a major shift for air transportation in Hong Kong. The old terminal, Kai Tak, is being converted to other uses, such as residential and commercial. The opening of the new terminal was not without problems since the air freight terminal was shut down for several weeks due to logistical problems.