New service to simplify mainland flight transit in HK

Secretary for Transport and Logistics Mable Chan on Tuesday said a new service had been launched to streamline international travel for mainland passengers departing from regional airports via Hong Kong International Airport to destinations around the world. A pilot phase is underway in collaboration with airports in Hangzhou and Wuhan. The new initiative is part of the national aviation programme named: "Trunk-Branch Connectivity, Whole-Network Linkage". Passengers can check in for their entire journey at their local airports, and fly out to international destinations via Hong Kong, instead of having to re-claim their luggage and then check in again in the SAR. Speaking at the opening ceremony of this year's Super Terminal Expo, Chan described the scheme as a game-changing service. "To put this into perspective, this transfer platform is already active across more than 260 airports in the mainland and has accumulatively facilitated over 260 million transfer passengers, allowing tens of millions of travellers to enjoy the unprecedented convenience of one-stop check-in and seamless baggage transfers," she said. "This is far more than a commercial expansion. It is a policy breakthrough, which embeds Hong Kong directly into the national overall aviation architecture." Chan stressed that Hong Kong International Airport plays a vital “linchpin...