Macau’s air hub is likely to handle 564 flights weekly during the final quarter this year, circa 50 percent of the same quarter in 2019, said its operator Macau International Airport Co Ltd (CAM), in an emailed response to an enquiry from GGRAsia.
Currently, 50 routes are operational via the airport: 30 destinations within the Greater China region, which encompasses mainland China and Taiwan; and 20 to other Asia-Pacific destinations, according to information provided by CAM.
Data from Macau’s Civil Aviation Authority indicates that of the 20 places served in the wider Asia-Pacific region, 15 are in Southeast Asia, and five are in East Asia, namely Japan and South Korea.
For the fourth quarter, it was “expected” that mainland China would continue to be “the major market” for inbound air travel to Macau, followed by flight routes to Southeast Asia and Taiwan, stated CAM in its latest commentary to GGRAsia.
The operator’s executive committee chairman Simon Chan Weng Hong, said in recent remarks to GGRAsia, the airport was forecast to handle up to 4.5 million inbound and outbound passenger trips this year. Based on previously-published CAM data, that would be circa 47 percent of the 9.61 million passengers handled in 2019, the last trading year before the Covid-19 pandemic.
Mr Chan had also mentioned it could be “2025 or 2026” before Macau’s airport would see pre-pandemic volumes of passengers.
