AS HE STEPPED away from the witness stand at the inquiry examining the disasters that plagued the opening of the airport at Chek Lap Kok, former Airport Authority chief executive Hank Townsend declared: 'You've got a great airport.'
The American engineer might have thought highly of Hong Kong International Airport which he helped construct, only to finish his contract in a storm of controversy following the debacle of its July 1998 launch. But more than two years later, critics of the facility and the government-owned statutory body charged with running it remain vocal.
As the Airport Authority embarks on a track towards privatisation, with new executives being brought in to give it a stronger commercial orientation, aviation-industry experts hope it can be transformed from what they describe as a moribund, bureaucratic operation.
'I have heard them [the Airport Authority] described as 'the mafia of mediocre',' said an executive familiar with daily operations at the airport, who spoke on condition of anonymity. 'I think they are in la-la land.'
He said suggestions for improvements even at the most basic level had been ignored. Many times, the executive said, he had advised about the need for better signs, such as ones to notify travellers about the passenger train to distant boarding gates. But nothing had been done.
According to its critics, and there are many working at the airport, the authority is burdened by a civil-service mentality as it tries to deal with the dynamic, fast-changing aviation industry and cater to demanding, sophisticated international travellers.
The Airport Authority denies allegations that it is too bureaucratic. Chief executive Billy Lam Chung-lun said its high standards and operating success over the past two years had been internationally recognised.
