HONG KONG - Air traffic at the Hong Kong International Airport performed well in the first month of 2011, with passenger volume surging 10 percent year-on-year to 4.3 million and cargo throughput going up 10.8 percent to 330,000 tons, the Airport Authority Hong Kong said Sunday in a statement.

It said that the growth in passenger traffic in January was mainly driven by visitor traffic and Hong Kong resident travel. Passenger traffic to and from Southeast Asia and the Chinese mainland performed particularly well.

"Passenger volume and aircraft movement figures continued to rise over the Chinese New Year period," The airport's Chief Executive Officer Stanley Hui said," a new daily record of more than 170, 000 passengers was set on Feb 7."

"During the period from Feb 2-8, the airport handled nearly 1.1 million passengers and over 6,100 air traffic movements, up 3.8 percent and 7.7 percent from the Chinese New Year period last year," he added.

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According to the statement, transfer and transit passengers grew by six percent year-on-year in January; aircraft movements grew by 16.9 percent over last January, totaling 27,410.

On the cargo front, the robust performance in export and transshipment, which increased by 11 percent and 16 percent respectively compared to the same month in 2010, resulted in the double-digit increase in cargo volume last month. Import grew by eight percent year-on-year in the month.

On a rolling 12-month basis, the airport handled 51.3 million passengers and more than 4.1 million tons of cargo, and the aircraft movements amounted to 310,500.