A record high flight movements at the Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA) is expected to be achieved on the Lunar New Year's Day (Feb. 9), when 762 aircraft are scheduled to arrive and depart, a spokesman for the Civil Aviation Department said on Thursday.

It is also expected that the second highest record will be made on Feb. 13, the fifth day of the Lunar New Year, when 752 aircraft are scheduled to arrive and depart.

"The number of flight movements expected on the Lunar New Year's Day represents an increase of about 13 percent when compared with an average of 675 movements a day," the spokesman said.

As on Thursday, 15 airlines had submitted slot requests to operate 338 additional scheduled and ad-hoc charter flights (i.e. a total of 676 flight movements) from Feb. 4 to Feb. 20, with most applications falling on the period between Feb. 9 and Feb. 13. All requests received so far have been accepted.

"The runway capacity during the holiday period will be increased from 50 to 52 flight movements per hour to cope with the extra traffic," the spokesman said.

Airlines that have already submitted requests plan to operate flights to 14 destinations on the Chinese mainland, 14 destinations in Northeast Asia, eight destinations in Southeast Asia, and one destination in New Zealand. Taipei is the most popular destination, followed by Seoul, Sapporo, Kunming and Shanghai.

The previous record high of 746 flight movements in a single day occurred on April 9, 2004, which was an Easter holiday.

(Shenzhen Daily February 3, 2005)