45-576: The Airport Express ( Chinese : 機場快綫 ) is one of the ten rail lines of the Hong Kong MTR system (excluding the light rail network). It links the urban area with Hong Kong International Airport and the AsiaWorld–Expo exhibition and convention centre. It is the only rail link to the airport. It runs parallel to the Tung Chung line , a rapid transit line, from Hong Kong station to just south of
90-503: A certain extent in South Korea , remain virtually identical to traditional characters, with variations between the two forms largely stylistic. There has historically been a debate on traditional and simplified Chinese characters . Because the simplifications are fairly systematic, it is possible to convert computer-encoded characters between the two sets, with the main issue being ambiguities in simplified representations resulting from
135-573: A journey on the entire route takes 28 minutes. The Airport Express line runs from Hong Kong station in Central . It crosses beneath Victoria Harbour before stopping at Kowloon station , which was built on reclaimed land . The line then runs along the western side of the Kowloon peninsula , crosses over the Rambler Channel rail bridge to Tsing Yi , and stops at Tsing Yi station . The line continues on
180-467: A new indigo carpet was installed. The interior was updated yet again in 2020, and new seat covers featuring the blue and aquamarine AEL logos and a grey wave pattern will be paired with synthetic leather head rests. This is a list of the stations on the Airport Express line. List In late 1998, Leon Lai showed a music video of MTR's Airport Express line for the song "Happy 2000", which includes
225-850: Is 産 (also the accepted form in Japan and Korea), while in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan the accepted form is 產 (also the accepted form in Vietnamese chữ Nôm ). The PRC tends to print material intended for people in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, and overseas Chinese in traditional characters. For example, versions of the People's Daily are printed in traditional characters, and both People's Daily and Xinhua have traditional character versions of their website available, using Big5 encoding. Mainland companies selling products in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan use traditional characters in order to communicate with consumers;
270-752: Is a free service provided exclusively for Airport Express passengers at Hong Kong or Kowloon stations, connecting them with major hotels in the Western District though Quarry Bay on Hong Kong Island and the Yau Tsim Mong District and Hung Hom station in Kowloon. Before boarding, proof of eligibility must be shown, including Airport Express train ticket (Single Journey, Same Day Return, Round Trip, Airport Express Travel Pass), Airline ticket / boarding pass, Airport Staff Octopus card , AsiaWorld–Expo entry pass or event ticket. The Airport Express Shuttle Bus
315-668: Is coloured teal on MTR system maps. In October 1989, the Hong Kong government decided to replace the overcrowded Kai Tak Airport , located in Kowloon , with a new airport to be constructed at Chek Lap Kok. The government invited the Mass Transit Railway Corporation to build an express line to the airport. The project began when the Chinese and British governments settled the financial and land agreements in November 1994. During
360-573: Is unsure when this took place. The Airport Express, along with other MTR metro lines, is monitored by the Operations Control Centre in Tsing Yi. The Airport Express is served by 11 CAF-Stock trains built and assembled by Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles in Spain while Adtranz contributed control and traction equipment. These trains were made up of seven cars until 2003. To cope with
405-483: The Chinese Commercial News , World News , and United Daily News all use traditional characters, as do some Hong Kong–based magazines such as Yazhou Zhoukan . The Philippine Chinese Daily uses simplified characters. DVDs are usually subtitled using traditional characters, influenced by media from Taiwan as well as by the two countries sharing the same DVD region , 3. With most having immigrated to
450-690: The Kensiu language . AsiaWorld%E2%80%93Expo station AsiaWorld–Expo is the western terminus of the Airport Express of the Hong Kong MTR . It serves the AsiaWorld–Expo in the northeast corner of Chek Lap Kok , the island on which the Hong Kong International Airport is located. The AsiaWorld–Expo is an exhibition centre designed to host largescale events located adjacent to Hong Kong International Airport. The Airport Express
495-690: The Lantau Link and runs parallel to the North Lantau Highway to Airport station before terminating at AsiaWorld–Expo station. The line only shares tracks with the Tung Chung line in the cross-harbour tunnel and from the Lantau Link through the split before reaching the airport island. The two lines have independent tracks and platforms at all stations. The Airport Express offers more spacious and comfortable trains and stations than other MTR services. On
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#1732854550824540-622: The Shanghainese -language character U+20C8E 𠲎 CJK UNIFIED IDEOGRAPH-20C8E —a composition of 伐 with the ⼝ 'MOUTH' radical—used instead of the Standard Chinese 嗎 ; 吗 . Typefaces often use the initialism TC to signify the use of traditional Chinese characters, as well as SC for simplified Chinese characters . In addition, the Noto, Italy family of typefaces, for example, also provides separate fonts for
585-481: The Airport Express has been cannibalised by the Tung Chung line running mostly on the same track. The Morning Express Service is a special promotional service, allowing passengers from Tsing Yi and Kowloon stations to travel to Hong Kong station to get to work daily (excluding Sundays and public holidays) from 7am to 10am for HK$ 25. Before the COVID-19 pandemic , Airport Express services operated every 10 minutes from
630-625: The Airport Express. Same-day return discount will be given to Octopus card users who have stayed in AsiaWorld–Expo for at least one hour. The discounted fare costs HK$ 72, HK$ 64, and HK$ 42 from Hong Kong, Kowloon, and Tsing Yi stations respectively, and includes a free connection with other MTR lines. A single trip from the Airport to AsiaWorld–Expo is HK$ 5. Given their separate fare structure, Airport Express journeys require an out-of-system transfer if coming from or going to other MTR lines that call at
675-901: The MTR online booking service. Although there are no entry gates at Airport station, passengers must still buy tickets from the ticket machines located in the Arrivals Hall, on platform 1 of the airport before boarding the train or at destination platforms (as they will not be able to exit from their destination platform otherwise). Various discounts and rewards programmes are available, such as Group Ticket Discount, free taxi connections, Rewarding programme, Asia Miles programme, etc. Passengers may also buy discounted tickets from local travel agents. Discounts are available for groups of two to four people. Hong Kong residents can also obtain discount coupons, such as those sent from credit card companies. Discounted fares are available to airport staff to encourage commuting on
720-547: The People's Republic of China, traditional Chinese characters are standardised according to the Table of Comparison between Standard, Traditional and Variant Chinese Characters . Dictionaries published in mainland China generally show both simplified and their traditional counterparts. There are differences between the accepted traditional forms in mainland China and elsewhere, for example the accepted traditional form of 产 in mainland China
765-521: The United States during the second half of the 19th century, Chinese Americans have long used traditional characters. When not providing both, US public notices and signs in Chinese are generally written in traditional characters, more often than in simplified characters. In the past, traditional Chinese was most often encoded on computers using the Big5 standard, which favored traditional characters. However,
810-525: The airport, baggage is automatically transferred from the express to the traveller's flight. In-town check in used to be offered for a greater variety of airlines at both Hong Kong and Kowloon stations, but this has been partially suspended since the COVID-19 pandemic travel disruptions. Baggage trolleys, wide fare gates, and free porter services are available at all stations except AsiaWorld–Expo to assist passengers with baggage. The Airport Express Shuttle Bus
855-448: The central business district and other MTR stations. Like the other stations on the Airport Express, AsiaWorld–Expo contains platform screen doors. However, the screen doors at this station are different from other stations of the Airport Express (except the now closed Terminal 2 platforms of Airport station ), as they are designed for the trains of Tung Chung line as well, so those trains can also be used to run services from and to
900-404: The channel between Lantau Island and Chek Lap Kok island, on which the airport was constructed. The line continues to the airport and terminates at AsiaWorld–Expo. The Tung Chung line terminates in the adjacent Tung Chung new town, with bus service to various areas at the airport, including the passenger terminals. The journey from Hong Kong station to the airport takes 24 minutes. The line
945-464: The construction, the consultants for the Lantau Airport Railway, such as Arup , Halcrow , Meinhardt, Hyder Consulting , and others. The Lantau Airport Railway was developed as two separate MTR lines, the Tung Chung line and the Airport Express, with the two lines sharing tracks in some sections. It cost was projected to cost HK$ 35.1 billion. The Airport Express began service on 6 July 1998,
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#1732854550824990-486: The effect of the project on the territory's fiscal reserves, which eventually forced the (British) Hong Kong government to reduce the cost of the Airport Railway. The resulting changes made imposed design limitations on the level of service on the line. Traditional Chinese characters Traditional Chinese characters are a standard set of Chinese character forms used to write Chinese languages . In Taiwan ,
1035-516: The extra traffic demand derived from the opening of AsiaWorld-Expo station, an additional car was added to each train to form a total of eight cars. If future demand increases, trains on the AEL are capable of running with ten cars. In service, the trains travel at a maximum speed of 135 km/h (84 mph). The train interiors saw their first refurbishment in 2008, after ten years in service. The grey seat covers were replaced with purple and green ones, and
1080-540: The interior of the A-Train. In the film Shock Wave 2 , a CAF-Train of the Airport Express was hijacked and planted with bombs, afterwards one of the terrorists drove it towards Hong Kong International Airport . When British Hong Kong was planning to build the Airport Railway ( Tung Chung line and Airport Express) in the 1990s, a few years before the planned handover to China , the Chinese government raised concerns about
1125-493: The inverse is equally true as well. In digital media, many cultural phenomena imported from Hong Kong and Taiwan into mainland China, such as music videos, karaoke videos, subtitled movies, and subtitled dramas, use traditional Chinese characters. In Hong Kong and Macau , traditional characters were retained during the colonial period, while the mainland adopted simplified characters. Simplified characters are contemporaneously used to accommodate immigrants and tourists, often from
1170-423: The magnetic tickets used for single, group, and multiple journey tickets with new "smart tickets" that contain a memory chip. The new system was in full operation by 5 June 2010. Due to the high fares and small catchment areas of the Airport Express stations, some travellers may instead choose to either use the cheaper, local Tung Chung line combined with a bus route, or make their entire journey by bus. Patronage on
1215-725: The mainland. The increasing use of simplified characters has led to concern among residents regarding protecting what they see as their local heritage. Taiwan has never adopted simplified characters. The use of simplified characters in government documents and educational settings is discouraged by the government of Taiwan. Nevertheless, with sufficient context simplified characters are likely to be successfully read by those used to traditional characters, especially given some previous exposure. Many simplified characters were previously variants that had long been in some use, with systematic stroke simplifications used in folk handwriting since antiquity. Traditional characters were recognized as
1260-682: The majority of Chinese text in mainland China are simplified characters , there is no legislation prohibiting the use of traditional Chinese characters, and often traditional Chinese characters remain in use for stylistic and commercial purposes, such as in shopfront displays and advertising. Traditional Chinese characters remain ubiquitous on buildings that predate the promulgation of the current simplification scheme, such as former government buildings, religious buildings, educational institutions, and historical monuments. Traditional Chinese characters continue to be used for ceremonial, cultural, scholarly/academic research, and artistic/decorative purposes. In
1305-975: The merging of previously distinct character forms. Many Chinese online newspapers allow users to switch between these character sets. Traditional characters are known by different names throughout the Chinese-speaking world. The government of Taiwan officially refers to traditional Chinese characters as 正體字 ; 正体字 ; zhèngtǐzì ; 'orthodox characters'. This term is also used outside Taiwan to distinguish standard characters, including both simplified, and traditional, from other variants and idiomatic characters . Users of traditional characters elsewhere, as well as those using simplified characters, call traditional characters 繁體字 ; 繁体字 ; fántǐzì ; 'complex characters', 老字 ; lǎozì ; 'old characters', or 全體字 ; 全体字 ; quántǐzì ; 'full characters' to distinguish them from simplified characters. Some argue that since traditional characters are often
1350-665: The official script in Singapore until 1969, when the government officially adopted Simplified characters. Traditional characters still are widely used in contexts such as in baby and corporation names, advertisements, decorations, official documents and in newspapers. The Chinese Filipino community continues to be one of the most conservative in Southeast Asia regarding simplification. Although major public universities teach in simplified characters, many well-established Chinese schools still use traditional characters. Publications such as
1395-486: The opening date of the new Hong Kong International Airport. The line initially terminated at Airport station and the entire journey time was 23 minutes. With the opening of Sunny Bay station on the Tung Chung line in June 2005, the total journey time between the Airport and Hong Kong stations was increased to 24 minutes. With the opening of AsiaWorld–Expo, the line was extended to AsiaWorld–Expo station on 20 December 2005 and
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1440-700: The original standard forms, they should not be called 'complex'. Conversely, there is a common objection to the description of traditional characters as 'standard', due to them not being used by a large population of Chinese speakers. Additionally, as the process of Chinese character creation often made many characters more elaborate over time, there is sometimes a hesitation to characterize them as 'traditional'. Some people refer to traditional characters as 'proper characters' ( 正字 ; zhèngzì or 正寫 ; zhèngxiě ) and to simplified characters as 簡筆字 ; 简笔字 ; jiǎnbǐzì ; 'simplified-stroke characters' or 減筆字 ; 减笔字 ; jiǎnbǐzì ; 'reduced-stroke characters', as
1485-825: The predominant forms. Simplified characters as codified by the People's Republic of China are predominantly used in mainland China , Malaysia, and Singapore. "Traditional" as such is a retronym applied to non-simplified character sets in the wake of widespread use of simplified characters. Traditional characters are commonly used in Taiwan , Hong Kong , and Macau , as well as in most overseas Chinese communities outside of Southeast Asia. As for non-Chinese languages written using Chinese characters, Japanese kanji include many simplified characters known as shinjitai standardized after World War II, sometimes distinct from their simplified Chinese counterparts . Korean hanja , still used to
1530-401: The same or connected stations (e.g. coming from Central towards Hong Kong station or transferring between Airport Express and Tung Chung line trains). However, Airport Express passengers using Octopus cards can connect with all other MTR lines for free in conjunction with the Airport Express journey within one hour of arrival at an Airport Express station. In March 2010, the MTR began to replace
1575-509: The set of traditional characters is regulated by the Ministry of Education and standardized in the Standard Form of National Characters . These forms were predominant in written Chinese until the middle of the 20th century, when various countries that use Chinese characters began standardizing simplified sets of characters, often with characters that existed before as well-known variants of
1620-438: The start of service (05:54 from Airport and 05:50 from Hong Kong) and every 12 minutes from 23:28 (from Airport) and 00:00 (from Hong Kong) until the last service 00:48. Train service was reduced as passenger ridership was yet to completely recover. From 5 November 2022, train services ran every 15–20 minutes throughout the day. As of 30 July 2024, train services have returned to their pre-pandemic frequency and timetable, though it
1665-415: The station. This includes receiving boarding passes, and checking in luggage, both services usually performed at the airport. This allows travellers to spend time in the city without having to carry their luggage before travelling to the airport bags-free. Each train has a special baggage container car and the checked baggage is scanned in bulk by a mechanised automatic explosive detection system. Upon reaching
1710-627: The traditional character set used in Taiwan ( TC ) and the set used in Hong Kong ( HK ). Most Chinese-language webpages now use Unicode for their text. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommends the use of the language tag zh-Hant to specify webpage content written with traditional characters. In the Japanese writing system , kyujitai are traditional forms, which were simplified to create shinjitai for standardized Japanese use following World War II. Kyūjitai are mostly congruent with
1755-970: The traditional characters in Chinese, save for minor stylistic variation. Characters that are not included in the jōyō kanji list are generally recommended to be printed in their traditional forms, with a few exceptions. Additionally, there are kokuji , which are kanji wholly created in Japan, rather than originally being borrowed from China. In the Korean writing system , hanja —replaced almost entirely by hangul in South Korea and totally replaced in North Korea —are mostly identical with their traditional counterparts, save minor stylistic variations. As with Japanese, there are autochthonous hanja, known as gukja . Traditional Chinese characters are also used by non-Chinese ethnic groups. The Maniq people living in Thailand and Malaysia use Chinese characters to write
1800-490: The trains, there are luggage racks next to each door, and each seat is equipped with in-seat loudspeakers for current news, advertisements and announcements shown on LCD televisions in front. When travelling on the Airport Express, travellers are able to use the In-Town Check-In service. When boarding from the Hong Kong or Kowloon stations, travellers can check in to either Cathay Pacific or Hong Kong Airlines flights in
1845-509: The ubiquitous Unicode standard gives equal weight to simplified and traditional Chinese characters, and has become by far the most popular encoding for Chinese-language text. There are various input method editors (IMEs) available for the input of Chinese characters . Many characters, often dialectical variants, are encoded in Unicode but cannot be inputted using certain IMEs, with one example being
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1890-571: The words for simplified and reduced are homophonous in Standard Chinese , both pronounced as jiǎn . The modern shapes of traditional Chinese characters first appeared with the emergence of the clerical script during the Han dynasty c. 200 BCE , with the sets of forms and norms more or less stable since the Southern and Northern dynasties period c. the 5th century . Although
1935-566: Was created in 1999 by Lloyd Northover , the British design consultancy founded by John Lloyd and Jim Northover. Fares on the Airport Express are substantially higher than main line fares; a separate fare system is used for this line. Single trip or same-day return trips between the Hong Kong, Kowloon and Tsing Yi stations to Airport station cost HK$ 115, HK$ 105 and HK$ 70 respectively. Return tickets within 30 days cost HK$ 205, HK$ 185, and HK$ 120 respectively. Tickets are available at all MTR stations and
1980-466: Was discontinued from 30 June 2020 due to low ridership caused by the COVID-19 pandemic . As of July 2024, the service has been reinstated, providing services to a limited number of hotels in Hong Kong and Kowloon. WiFi is available on all Airport Express cars, while USB ports and power points are available in the first and last cars. The Airport Express visual identity, which includes the logo, vehicle livery, signage, route maps and passenger information,
2025-445: Was extended with a new station at AsiaWorld–Expo to accommodate visitors and organisers. Tracks were already laid to the site of the AsiaWorld–Expo station when Airport Express inaugurated on 6 July 1998, trains had to terminate at Airport but they were originally used as a turn back siding before the station was built. The station opened on 20 December 2005 together with the exhibition centre, allowing it to be accessible by rail from
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