Hong Kong Airport Authority is plotting to boost passenger volume at the underutilized Zhuhai International Airport by luring travelers wanting to fly from Shanghai to London to connect via Hong Kong on board budget airlines.

To this end, chief executive David Pang Ding-jung said the authority hopes to work out an agreement with Hong Kong-based Oasis Airlines and Shanghai's Spring Airlines to facilitate the scheme.

"We expect a significant number of passengers that landed in or departed from Zhuhai came from budget carriers like Spring Airlines in the past year," Pang said on January 29.

Spring operates daily service from Shanghai to Zhuhai, while Oasis flies daily between Hong Kong and London.

Under the authority's scheme, London-bound passengers from Shanghai would be flown to Zhuhai aboard Spring, then shuttled to Hong Kong for the London leg with Oasis. However, a Spring spokesman said the carrier has not spoken to the authority or Oasis about any proposal.

"We will not line up any international airlines, as the business model is quite complicated," spokesman Zhang Liu said.

Zhuhai airport has been plagued by a shortage of capital and management inefficiencies over the past decade. Guangzhou-based China Southern Airlines, Shanghai-based China Eastern Airlines, Hainan Airlines and Xiamen Airlines all began operating at the airport last year. General manager Vivian Cheung said the authority aims to increase the number of airlines serving Zhuhai from five to seven by the end of 2007.

The authority, which established a management joint venture with the Zhuhai municipal government to run its airport for 20 years, plans to increase passenger traffic from 640,000 in 2005 to 1.5 million by 2010, and cargo handling volume from 10,000 to 50,000 tonnes.