Hong Kong’s airport is buzzing again as passenger numbers have bounced back to pre-pandemic levels. The city’s airport authority recently released their air traffic figures for January 2025, which revealed that the aviation hub handled more than 190,000 travellers on a single day in the month. Officials say this represents “a full recovery to the pre-pandemic peak level”. More than five million airline customers also used the terminal last month, a 27.8% increase from January 2024.
Flight and Passenger Numbers Continue to Rise
According to a statement from the Airport Authority Hong Kong, more than 193,000 fliers went through the terminal on January 25, 2025, in the run-up to Chinese New Year. The airport also handled 5.28 million passengers throughout the month and 170,000 on average every day. Traveller figures also doubled across a variety of segments — Hong Kong residents, visitors, and transit passengers — compared to the same period the previous year, with significant increases in traffic to and from Southeast Asia, Mainland China, and Japan.
Airport authorities also said that there were more passenger flights in and out of Hong Kong — an increase of 17% to 33,660 during the month. This is in part likely because carrier like Hong Kong Airlines added flights to Vancouver and Gold Coast and HK Express launched a new service to Sendai in January.
Post-Pandemic Travel Boom in Hong Kong
Last month, a report from global travel data provider OAG found that Hong Kong International Airport was among the 10 busiest airports in 2024 as it increased its seat capacity by 40% during the year. More than 53 million fliers used the airport in this time — up 34.3% from 2023. There has also been a continuous upward trend in terms of tourist arrivals in Hong Kong, as the city emerged as the fourth-most popular city for tourists in 2024, and welcomed more than 4.7 visitors during the year — a post-pandemic record high.
Image credits: Hong Kong International Airport
