Hactl to raise IT budget by 20pc during air cargo downturn

HONG KONG Air Cargo Terminals (Hactl) plans to raise IT spending this year by 20 per cent, according to Tan Chee Hong, general manager of information services and operations development.

The economic downturn is a right time for us to speed up implementation and system upgrades, said Mr Tan in a report by Hong Kong's Computer World magazine. It's easier to have downtime approval because air cargo throughput has dropped.

Data from Hong Kong Air Cargo Terminals shows that air cargo throughput via Hong Kong fell 26.9 per cent in January and February year-on-year to 276,378 tons as global demand for Asian goods slowed down.

In February, throughput was down 22 per cent from a year ago, improving from a 30.9 per cent drop in January.

Mr Tan said future projects will include server consolidation and virtualisation, adoption of ITSM/ITIL, and wireless network upgrade. He added the company wants to look into business intelligence to make its 52 TB of data useful.

While the average data volume growth reached 20 per cent in the past few years, Mr Tan said the company expects the growth rate to drop three to five per cent in 2009.

Recently Hactl began using Symantec's managed security services for guarding its networks and data. Thomas Lee, IT operations manager at Hactl said that the company has already been a user of storage and security products, including Veritas Storage Foundation software and NetBackup, and Veritas Cluster Server for five years.

Owing to the weaker demand for air cargo, Cathay Pacific Services has postponed the completion of its new cargo terminal at Hong Kong International Airport by a maximum of 24 months to mid-2013.

Hactl operates Super Terminal 1 at the Hong Kong International Airport, serving more than 90 airlines and 1,000 freight forwarders. The US$1 billion facility, said Hactl, is the largest single air cargo terminal in the world with a potential handling capacity of 3.5 million tons per annum.

In 2008, the operator handled 2.53 million tons of air cargo, accounting for more than 70 per cent of air cargo throughput at the Hong Kong International Airport.

Source: Schednet