Airport Express (MTR)

The Airport Express is one of the lines of the Mass Transit Railway (MTR) serving Hong Kong. It links the principal urban areas of Hong Kong to Hong Kong International Airport and the associated AsiaWorld-Expo exhibition and convention centre.

Although a part of the MTR system, the Airport Express is not primarily a rapid transit or metro line. Instead, it provides premium fare express service to and from the airport and exhibition centre every 12 minutes, using specially designed rolling stock intended to provide similar levels of comfort to that found on an airliner. The average maximum speed between stations is 130 kilometres per hour.

The Airport Express line is the only rail link to the airport's terminal area. However, it is paralleled for most of its length by the Tung Chung Line, a more traditional rapid transit line. The Tung Chung line diverges from the Airport Express line just south of the channel between Lantau Island and Chek Lap Kok island (on which the airport was constructed), and terminates in the adjacent Tung Chung new town. From here bus links serve the various areas of the airport, including the passenger terminals.

The journey from Hong Kong Station to the airport takes 24 minutes. The line is indicated in the colour <font color=#>teal</font> on MTR system maps.

History

In October 1989, the Hong Kong government decided to replace the over-crowded Kai Tak Airport, located in Kowloon, with a new airport to be constructed at Chek Lap Kok. The...
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