Chaos Central

Just days after this metropolis’ $20-billion airport opened, the fanfare has been forgotten. Instead, a combination of computer glitches, mechanical breakdowns and unprepared personnel has turned Chek Lap Kok, the world’s most expensive airport, into the globe’s biggest snag--for critical cargo traffic and travelers alike.

Problems with air bridges have left passengers stranded in planes for hours. A software bug erased flight information from monitors, preventing passengers from finding flights. Faults with the baggage system have meant lots of lost luggage, both coming and going. On Monday, 10,000 bags were left behind in Hong Kong, the Airport Authority sheepishly conceded.

“You have to expect some problems when an airport this big opens up,” Clinton Leeks, the airport’s corporate development director, said Wednesday. Still, he managed to find a silver lining: “Today’s problems are nothing like the problems we had on Monday or Tuesday.”

Similar woes have plagued other new airports, especially in this hotly competitive region, and the experiences here may offer clues to Southern California officials as they contemplate major expansions or the building of big new airports.

On Wednesday, a tour group from China headed to the United States was stranded while their tour operator labored to locate their luggage and get them on a flight.

But at least some inconveniences in the passenger terminal were abating, sort of. Salvation Guzon, 26, a passenger from Manila, waited only 20 minutes for her first bag, though the second one never arrived. “At least I got one,” she said, smiling at other passengers still waiting with empty luggage carts. “I hear that’s an improvement.”

And the problems at the passenger terminal are nothing compared with the fiasco with freight. Hong Kong has been among the busiest cargo ports in the world; now it is simply the most chaotic.

Another computer bug erased all inventory records, leaving no clue to who owned what, and a mechanical breakdown in the loading system left workers unable to process shipments anyway.

The airport’s largest freight company, Hong Kong Air Cargo Terminals, or HACTL, declared a three-day embargo on cargo while it shifts operations for everything but perishables back to the old airport, Kai Tak.

“Imports go to the old airport,” said a weary Anthony Charter, managing director of HACTL. “Perishables and things like bullion and body parts--kidneys and such--are being handled specially here.”

Meanwhile, containers of freight littered the tarmac while forklift operators buzzed in circles, unsure where to take cargo.

One ailing cocker spaniel was rescued from its box, which had been abandoned for hours on the hot runway.

Many other perishables had perished. Or, as one freight worker put it: “This place stinks.”

He wasn’t talking only about the dead fish, rotting vegetables and stabled livestock. Wholesalers and importers are screaming about their losses and say they plan to sue the Airport Authority for compensation.

“This has gone beyond surreal. It’s almost comic,” said food wholesaler Andy Hickl-Szabo, who supplies some of Hong Kong’s top hotels and restaurants with imported fresh fish and vegetables.

His partner spent all day Tuesday and half the night at the airport shepherding their goods through the system and was back Wednesday, “jumping up and down” to liberate the rest of the shipment before it spoiled. “The airport is liable,” Hickl-Szabo said. “This is not an act of God.”

How did it all go so wrong? Critics blame the government for pushing for too much, too quickly.

Airport authorities had already delayed the July 6 opening date for months, ostensibly to finish work on a rail link but really to give the cargo handlers more time to prepare after they warned last March that they weren’t ready.

“I do not believe [the airport] was opened too early,” said Hong Kong Financial Secretary Donald Tsang on Wednesday, noting that Chek Lap Kok had months of tests and trials. “But we must realize those trials were in very contrived conditions, and [the facilities] had not been tested with the number of passengers we handled yesterday, and the amount of cargo. So it was a bit unlucky, and the computer has been a little bit of a problem for them.”

Adding to the chaos was the monumental overnight move from the old airport to the new one. In the six hours between the old facility’s last flight and the new airport’s opening the next day, more than 1,000 pieces of equipment and cargo were ferried to Chek Lap Kok.

The first flights took off and landed as scheduled that morning, but the cargo containers were mixed up.

“We’ve been under tremendous pressure to try and meet deadlines,” Charter said. “We knew we were going to have difficulty, but we thought we could cope. Now we’re just trying to make sure the fallback plan will work.”

In the U.S., the biggest, most expensive new airport--the $4.9-billion Denver facility, which opened in 1995--has been plagued by glitches in its high-tech setup. A state-of-the-art baggage handling system created nightmares until it was debugged; the airport’s distant location from the central city has been the subject of continuing criticism, especially as it makes the facility more vulnerable to bad weather. And recently, Denver International Airport struggled through an embarrassing stranding of thousands of passengers caused by stoppages of a futuristic tram system that carries travelers through the terminals.

The difficulties in Denver have been of considerable interest in Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties, as officials contemplate spending billions of dollars to expand LAX and convert the El Toro facility into a major new civilian airport.

As for the chaos in Hong Kong, airport authorities here could have taken a lesson from Malaysia, which rushed to open its new, $2.5-billion facility July 1 to beat the debut of the facility in the former British colony.

The Malaysian airport’s “total airport management system” collapsed on the first day, creating gridlock. Bagless passengers stood alongside an empty carousel, chanting “Lug-gage! Lug-gage!” in an attempt to create some action.

One express shipper warned Tuesday that Hong Kong’s performance in the next two days would be crucial. “Now that the incident is known worldwide, many [shippers] will avoid Hong Kong,” Perry Chao, manager of United Parcel Service’s local branch, told the Hong Kong Standard newspaper.

Express couriers TNT, DHL, UPS and Federal Express use a separate freight handling center at the airport, which has not been hit so hard.

But Hong Kong has new rivals in just-opened airports, in Macao and just across the border in mainland China in Shenzhen and Zhuhai, that can handle freight or passengers for at least 20% less.

“We have to be forgiving,” Financial Secretary Tsang said Wednesday. “I know my colleagues at the Airport Authority are really trying to do their very best. I’m sure they’re going to deliver back to us, the Hong Kong people, a first-class airport in the next few days.”

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International Cargo Hub

The $20-billion Chek Lap Kok airport replaces Hong Kong’s old and overcrowded Kai Tak airport. Since the new airport opened Monday, passengers have suffered delays. But the real problems have been at the new cargo terminal, where computer glitches and mechanical breakdowns have caused concern because Hong Kong is one of the world’s biggest cargo hubs.

CARGO RANK (In millions of metric tones annually)

1. Memphis: 1.63

2. Los Angeles: 1.37

3. Hong Kong: 1.30

4. Miami: 1.28

5. Tokyo: 1.27

****

PASSENGER RANK (In millions of people annually)

1. Chicago: 53

2. Atlanta: 50

3. Los Angeles: 45

4. London: 44

20. Hong Kong: 22

Note: 1997 figures

Source: Airports Council International