Square Feet: Hong Kong’s Old Airport Reopens as a Cruise Ship Terminal

HONG KONG — It was perhaps the most spectacular flight approach in the world: amid mountains, seas and frequently tempestuous winds, aircraft nearing Kai Tak Airport in Hong Kong would stage a stomach-churning right turn, glide over the densely populated Kowloon Peninsula and land on a runway that jutted straight out into the sea.

Starting Wednesday, passengers approaching the old runway will do so at crawl speed — and from the sea, rather than from the air.

After 15 years of lying idle, the former airport will reopen its gates to the world’s travelers — as a cruise ship terminal at the southern end of the old runway.

Gleaming silver, and 850 meters, or about half-mile long, the new terminal building has airy immigration and check-in halls reminiscent of, yes, an airport. A large, manicured rooftop garden with 360-degree views of the Hong Kong skyline will open to the public in the next few months. And the terminal’s two berths will be able to accommodate the largest cruise ships in the world — behemoths more than 300 meters long that can carry thousands of passengers.

The first of those giants — the 15-deck, 310-meter Mariner of the Seas, operated by Royal Caribbean International and carrying more than 3,000 passengers — is scheduled to dock at the terminal Wednesday evening.

The new cruise ship terminal cost 8.2 billion in Hong Kong dollars, or about $1 billion, and was designed by the architectural firm of Norman Foster, whose other designs include plans for the renovation of the New York Public Library. Mr. Foster’s firm also designed the larger airport that replaced Kai Tak in July 1998.

For now, most of the old airport, including the area where the terminal building once stood, lies empty, the shiny new cruise terminal awkwardly isolated at the far end of the former runway. The nearest neighborhoods — Kwun Tong and Kowloon Bay — are somewhat rundown, and until planned public transportation connections are completed in the coming years, the terminal building’s rooftop gardens will be tough for ordinary visitors to reach.

While Hong Kong is home to one of the busiest container ports in the world, cruise companies held off factoring the terminal into their itineraries until it was actually finished. Just 19 ships are scheduled to dock at the new terminal in the next 12 months.

Still, industry executives say they believe that traffic will gradually increase as cruise activity in Asia picks up, and Hong Kong policy makers see the project as crucial to expanding tourism in the city.

Gregory So, the Hong Kong secretary for commerce and economic development, said at a media briefing last week that the new terminal would “greatly enhance the berthing capacity for cruise ships in Hong Kong, thereby enhancing our competitiveness and attractiveness.”

The decision to convert the old airport site into a cruise terminal is, in essence, a bet on Asia’s growing appetite for travel.

Over the last few decades, thanks to rising affluence and improved transport links, Asia has evolved from being primarily a destination for wealthy Westerners to being an increasingly important source of new travelers — Asians journeying to places within the region and beyond. Travel from mainland China, in particular, has soared, making the country both the biggest source of foreign tourists in the world, and the biggest spender in global tourism, according to the World Tourism Organization.

This growth has yet to extend into the cruise ship segment, which remains overwhelmingly focused on travel within the Mediterranean and the Caribbean. Just under two-thirds of the roughly 21 million people in the world who will take a cruise this year will come from North America, and about 27 percent will come from Europe, according to Cruise Market Watch, an American firm that compiles data on the industry. Only about 7 percent come from Asia.

In part, that is because Asians have only recently begun to approach travel as something that involves relaxation and leisure, rather than an activity focused on shopping and sightseeing, said Liu Zinan, chairman of the Asia Cruise Association and vice president of Asia for Royal Caribbean.

The lack of terminals that accommodate cruise ships also has hampered growth in the region.

A Retailer, Eileen Fisher, Shakes Off Storm’s Body Blows and Reopens

And it was.

All but one of the company’s 58 stores are open, and retailers like Nordstrom and Bloomingdale’s have Ms. Fisher’s latest designs on their racks. On a recent afternoon, aside from its cramped quarters, there was no sign of the storm on the second floor of the Eileen Fisher headquarters here, 20 miles north of Manhattan. Phones were ringing, online orders were being processed and Ms. Fisher was at her desk.

But step downstairs, where work crews were sawing off the bottom part of walls, removing mold-ridden desks and pulling up drenched carpet, and the magnitude of the last month’s miracle was hard to dismiss.

“It was a mess,” Ms. Fisher said. “I couldn’t believe it.”

Hurricane Sandy hurt retailers large and small. It closed airports, ports and roads, jamming merchandise at critical shipping times. More than a third of stores in the Northeast closed for at least a day, according to the research firm RetailNext. Macy’s has said that the storm delayed sales. Target said November started off choppily, and a Kohl’s store in Brooklyn will be closed at least through January.

For Eileen Fisher, started by Ms. Fisher in 1984, the storm was the biggest blow to operations ever. It decimated a store here and closed her headquarters, her Manhattan design center and her warehouse in Secaucus, N.J. For smaller retailers — Eileen Fisher expects about $350 million in revenue this year — a week or two of closed offices, stores and warehouses in early November could be ruinous.

Recovery was both an urgent and a daunting task. A broad insurance policy helped a lot. So did some planning and a good amount of luck. As did an almost out-of-body detachment on executives’ parts to see past the emotion of sewage-soaked shirts and stained rolls of fabric to the prize of reopening a ravaged business.

Even the cash in the register at the Irvington store had to be taken home and blown dry. Almost $1.5 million, 12 Dumpsters and eight moving-truck-size mobile storage units of damaged goods later, Eileen Fisher was — for the most part — back.

“It was just stuff,” Ms. Fisher said.

Perils of a New Location

Ms. Fisher moved her headquarters to Irvington 20 years ago, choosing a brick building that was just a couple of yards from the Hudson River. It reminded her of the TriBeCa location where she had started the business, she said, and who doesn’t get inspiration from water?

Now that inspiration had become a liability. On a recent sunny day, the Hudson seemed calm and threatless, a cool gray-brown river about 10 feet below its banks. But on the night of the storm, the river rose over a barrier and stampeded north, churning through buildings “like a washing machine,” said Peter Joslin, the company’s facilities manager.

Mr. Joslin is from the Midwest, and he’s seen his fair share of river flooding, including last year, when a corner of the building took on water during Hurricane Irene.

In the week before Sandy hit on Monday, Oct. 29, he was watching the weather forecasts, but, as he says, “we’re pretty laid back down here.”

Then, on the Friday before the storm, he received an e-mail from his predecessor in the job. It contained just four words: “Get out them sandbags.”

“That started to freak me out,” Mr. Joslin said.

He called the owner of a remediation company that had done work for Eileen Fisher in the past and obtained a promise that if anything went wrong, the company would be on site within two hours. He then called a moving company to see if it could remove some important files and other valuables, like $20,000 copiers. It was already booked.

Employees worked through the weekend, piling sandbags three high along the building, encasing the second floor of headquarters in plastic in case the roof leaked and caulking windows. The storm struck Monday night.

Assessing the Damage

DealBook: Stocks Little Changed as Market Reopens

Robert Caplin for The New York TimesMayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York City on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday.

4:34 p.m. | Updated

The major stock indexes ended little changed in light trading on Wednesday as the market reopened after a two-day shutdown caused by Hurricane Sandy.

A bevy of TV news crews and camera-toting tourists thronged the New York Stock Exchange for the opening, but the trading floor betrayed little that was unusual.

A small crowd enveloped Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York City as he briefly stepped onto the floor to greet exchange workers. He later took to the balcony overlooking the pits to ring the opening bell, flanked by Duncan L. Niederauer, the chief executive of NYSE Euronext, and Robert Steel, a deputy mayor.

As the familiar clang rang through the hall for the first time this week, a small cheer erupted from the floor.

The dozen staffers at “the ramp,” an important N.Y.S.E. nerve center on the floor, scanned a wall of monitors to check on market activity.

Lucas Jackson/ReutersDuncan Niederauer, chief executive of NYSE Euronext.

Milling about the floor was Lawrence E. Leibowitz, NYSE Euronext’s chief operating officer, checking on the state of operations. It was his second straight day at the exchange, having slept there overnight after wading from his home to Wall Street.

“There have been very few, very isolated problems,” Mr. Leibowitz said. He pointed to blank monitors that were shut off because the data provider was delivering incorrect market data.

“If that’s the worst of our problems,’ he added, “we’re in good shape.”

Mr. Niederauer seemed pleased as well. Wednesday was his first day back at the exchange since last week, having worked remotely because he could not come into the city.

“We’re pleased to see the turnout of staff,” he said, with many market makers being nearly fully represented.

He said many technical issues had been resolved, though technicians from Verizon were on hand to patch spotty communications and network connections. Many trading firms resorted to sharing working Internet and phone lines, while specialists ducked outside to get cellphone service unavailable on the floor.

The Dow Jones industrial average ended the day down 10.75 points, or 0.08 percent, at 13,096.46. The Nasdaq composite index closed down 10.72 points, or 0.36 percent, at 2,977.23. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index, meanwhile, ended fractionally higher.

Jonathan D. Corpina, a senior managing partner at Meridian Equity Partners, came armed with a flashlight to navigate the darkened streets of Lower Manhattan. But he found it easy to find the exchange, which was illuminated thanks to backup generators.

“We’re here filling orders, and it’s business as usual,” he said.

Traders were treated to a free breakfast on the floor of the Big Board and a free lunch in the cafeteria. The N.Y.S.E. also dispatched 20 cars Tuesday to ensure everyone who needed to get in could get in.

Some traders did improvise in the wake of the disaster. Many stood outside the exchange’s doors Wednesday because they were having trouble getting cellphone service on the floor.

At least one firm, however, had operations affected by the storm. The Knight Capital Group suffered a power disruption at its headquarters in Jersey City on Wednesday and told clients to route their orders elsewhere, a spokeswoman for the trading firm confirmed.

It is the first time that the trading firm has run into significant problems since it was rescued by a group of investors in August.

Susanne Craig contributed reporting.