Will the New Kai Tak Live Up to the Old Airport’s Legacy?

Fans sing along to classic songs, their voices blending with the hum of conversation and the distant thump of music. Amidst the crowd’s fervent cheers, a Cathay Pacific A350 soars majestically through the sky. As the Hong Kong Rugby Sevens 2025 wrapped up in late March, this extraordinary fly-by paid tribute to the 100th anniversary of the once legendary Kai Tak Airport. Though it didn’t replicate the daring low-altitude turns of the past, the flight rekindled collective memories of a time when Kai Tak’s dramatic landings and takeoffs defined Hong Kong’s skyline and spirit.

What originally began as reclaimed land bought in 1912 by entrepreneurs Ho Kai and Au Tak to build a residential area instead became the site of an airport – one that connected Hong Kong to the world from 1925 until its closure and transition to Chek Lap Kok Airport in 1998. Kai Tak Airport became the first point of contact between most Hongkongers and the outside world, its central location placing it in the heart of the bustle of an emerging international city.

Perched on the shores of Kowloon Bay, with the Kowloon mountains looming to the north, Kai Tak was an especially difficult airport to navigate. Planes descended from the west over Victoria Harbour and dense Kowloon neighbourhoods, including Mong Kok and the infamous Kowloon Walled City. Pilots used a large red-and-white checkerboard painted on the side of a hill in Lok Fu as a visual marker, then made a sharp 47-degree right turn at low altitude to align with the runway. This daring manoeuvre made Kai Tak a dramatic and unforgettable part of the Hong Kong experience.

Today, Kai Tak’s identity has been transformed. The vast expanse of the former airport has been transformed into a mixed-use district with public and private housing, shopping malls, a cruise ship terminal, parks and the newly opened Kai Tak Sports Park, whose centrepiece 50,000-seat stadium played host to the Rugby Sevens for the first time this year. The new Kai Tak is still under development, but it is already raising questions about the role it will play in Hong Kong. Can it ever hope to hold as much sway over the local imagination as the airport once did?

Memories of the airport

The story of Kai Tak Airport began in the early 1920s when entrepreneurs Ho Kai and Au Tak attempted to reclaim land from Kowloon Bay for residential development. Their plan was foiled by economic instability and the land was purchased in 1924 by the Hong Kong government with the intent of establishing an airfield. The site quickly became home to an aviation school with a grass runway that was used by the Royal Air Force and a number of flying clubs. Over time, facilities for seaplanes were added, followed by the construction of a control tower and hangar. By 1936, British-owned Imperial Airways was offering commercial service to London.

When the Japanese occupied Hong Kong from 1941 to 1945, they used prisoner-of-war labour to build two new concrete runways. In 1954, a little under a decade after the British regained control of Hong Kong, the colonial government drew up plans to develop Kai Tak into a modern commercial airport. The runways were rebuilt and a passenger terminal opened in 1962. With Hong Kong quickly becoming a manufacturing and trading hub with economic links around the world, Kai Tak became a central part of the city’s boomtown experience.

The airport’s proximity to residential and commercial districts meant its operations became deeply intertwined with the city’s daily life, economy and urban planning – creating a sense of close-knit familiarity for residents. In the days before air conditioning became widespread in Hong Kong, schoolchildren would take advantage of the climate-controlled waiting hall to do their homework. By the 1990s, however, Kai Tak faced serious challenges: the impact of its noise and air pollution on nearby residents was becoming better understood, and perhaps more consequentially for the government, its densely-packed surroundings made it difficult to further expand. One of the last grand gestures of the colonial government was to plan for a new international airport on Chek Lap Kok, a small island off the northern shore of Lantau.

Although the new airport opened in 1998, many Hongkongers still have a strong affinity for the old Kai Tak Airport. Among them is Kamal Mirwani, founder of Hong Kong Hike, an online platform that specialises in the city’s hiking trails and their histories – including Checkerboard Hill, the point in Lok Fu when pilots made their sharp turn into Kai Tak. As a child, his daily commute from his home in Tsim Sha Tsui to Kowloon Junior School in Ho Man Tin took him along Princess Margaret Road, where he recalls planes banking low as they prepared to land. “Every morning, it was just the sound of engines right overhead,” he recalls. “As a kid, your imagination runs wild especially when looking out at these massive monster planes. I was like ‘How is this happening?’” 

The proximity of planes descending into Kai Tak is a big part of why so many Hongkongers have such vivid memories of the airport, according to Hong Kong historian and Lingnan University professor Lau Chi-pang. “The sight of airplanes descending just above buildings became a captivating spectacle for residents and visitors alike, with some people even making a hobby of watching planes land from rooftops,” he says.

The drama wasn’t only experienced on the ground. The so-called Checkerboard Approach required special training for pilots because it left no room for error. Both passengers and pilots recall how nerve-wracking — but also exhilarating — the final descent could be. Today, Checkerboard Hill (gaak3 zai2 saan1 格仔山) remains a cherished site, with its distinctive pattern repainted during the pandemic. Visitors can still explore this landmark about 100 metres above Kowloon Tsai Park; it has become a popular photography spot for social media enthusiasts.

Kai Tak Sports Park, rendering by Populous – Image courtesy Populous

A new neighbourhood  

The new Hong Kong International Airport is often described as one of the best airports in the world; its terminal designed by Foster and Partners was almost immediately embraced by Hongkongers and is still praised for its spaciousness and ease of navigation today. But there is still plenty of nostalgia for Kai Tak. “It was a different time and one can only think fondly of those memories,” says Mirwani. In many ways, Kai Tak embodied the fast-and-loose atmosphere of Hong Kong’s golden years, when the city emerged not just as an economic but also a cultural powerhouse whose influence could be felt around the world. “Back then, you had a bit more chaos,” says Mirwani.

The same cannot be said for the gleaming malls and sport infrastructure of the new Kai Tak. After years of sitting empty, other than a few abandoned buildings like the old Kai Tak Fire Station — a favourite urban exploration spot — the old airport is now populated by a forest of new high rises. Redevelopment plans were repeatedly tweaked. An initial focus on lower density and more greenery than is typical for Hong Kong’s urban areas gave way to the reality of Hong Kong’s housing situation, and Kai Tak is now a mix of soaring public housing estates and luxury private development. There is also the cruise terminal completed at the end of the former runway in 2013, new office towers, cycle tracks, harbourfront promenades and a large park that follows the Kai Tak River, a formerly polluted waterway that was initially going to be covered.

Much of the area is still under development, but enough has been completed that it’s possible to get a sense of what this new part of Hong Kong feels like. And that feeling, according to many visitors, is slightly off-kilter. Paul Zimmerman, co-founder of urban design watchdog Designing Hong Kong and member of the Task Force on Kai Tak Harbourfront Development, says his first impression was that Kai Tak has an “out-of-town feel” – removed in character if not in distance to the older neighbourhoods nearby. Part of this may simply be the fact that it is new, without the layers of businesses and other activities that give older areas their liveliness. 

Zimmerman thinks it would be a good idea to enliven Kai Tak’s new public spaces with food trucks, and he also thinks accessibility can be improved. Although cycling is allowed along the new harbourfront promenade and in many of Kai Tak’s other public spaces, there is little cycle parking and no repair facilities. With Kai Tak and Sun Wong Toi MTR stations located on the edge of the redevelopment, it can be a long walk to many parts of the former airport, which discourages casual exploration.

Keeping history alive

Those who do explore Kai Tak will be rewarded with some discreet nods to its aviation heritage. Among the area’s new streets are Dakota Drive (dak1 gou1 dou6 德高道) originates from the Douglas C-47 transport aircraft nicknamed Dakota by the British Army – possibly inspired by the acronym to denote Douglas Aircraft Company Transport Aircraft. Concorde Road (hip3 tiu4 dou6 協調道) is another example. Its English name refers to the Concorde supersonic passenger aircraft, jointly operated by Air France and British Airways, which first landed in Hong Kong in 1976 with Imelda Marcos, the wife of the former Philippine president, among those on board. (The Chinese name is more ambiguous: hip3 tiu4 (協調) refers to an actual concord, whereas the jet’s name in Chinese was wo4 haai4 (和諧).) 

Plaza 13/31, adjacent to the Kai Tak Youth Sports Ground, is named after the famous Runway 13/31 of Hong Kong’s former airport – the one that required a hair-raising turn at Checkerboard Hill. The plaza features a 7.5-metre-tall sculpture, Landing, by Australian artist Russell Anderson, depicting two figures running after a low-flying plane. About 10 minutes away by foot, on the roof of the cruise terminal, the Kai Tak Sky Garden is an elevated, runway-shaped landscaped deck spanning about 1.4 kilometres and covering two hectares along the former airport runway. Its design incorporates aviation-inspired elements visible in the sidewalk floors, seating and landscaped platforms that resemble an aircraft’s body and wings. 

Then there is one of Kai Tak’s most popular attractions to date: Airside, a shopping centre named after the post-immigration area of an airport. It houses the Gate33 Gallery, a creative space whose name refers to the old airport’s boarding gates, which numbered 1 to 32, each one symbolising a new beginning. The gallery hosts exhibitions and workshops that often reflect the culture of nearby neighbourhoods like Kowloon City. One of the gallery’s previous shows, Desire to Fly, spotlighted Kai Tak Airport’s 73-year history, with more than 200 historical artefacts provided by Cathay Pacific and the Hong Kong Aircraft Engineering Company, as well as vintage photos and immersive artworks. A rare display of a vintage 1960s Beagle Pup aircraft was also exhibited, inviting visitors to experience the airport’s golden era through multisensory storytelling. 

So, despite the glossy façades of its new developments, Kai Tak’s aviation history is still present. But it will take many years to understand whether the new development will ever find a place in Hong Kong’s heart the way its old airport did. Zimmerman thinks the only way this can happen is by allowing Kai Tak to become a real neighbourhood rather than an area oriented around events like the Rugby Sevens. He points to his hometown of Rotterdam in the Netherlands, whose redevelopment of old portlands and other ageing infrastructure — a 30-year project similar in scale to Kai Tak — is considered a success because it focused on creating communities with a real sense of place. 

As Kai Tak continues to evolve, the unrealised residential project once championed by entrepreneurs Ho Kai and Au Tak is finally taking flight, albeit in a form they could never have imagined. The vast area has the potential to redefine its place in Hong Kong’s landscape, like the iconic airport that was once so integral to the city’s identity. Whether the new Kai Tak will carry the same significance remains to be seen, but its transformation is one we are watching with anticipation.

Photos in slider are by Greg Girard and Kamal Mirwani.