The passenger flow handled by the Macau International Airport during the first quarter of 2020 fell by about 50 percent compared to the same period last year, as the demand for flights slumped amid the shock of the novel coronavirus, noted the city’s airport operator in a Wednesday press release.
The airport operator, Macau International Airport Co Ltd, also noted in the release that it saw a 25 percent year-on-year decline in cargo volume handled during the first quarter this year.
The Macau airport had handled more than 2.33 million passengers in the first quarter of 2019, according to the airport operator’s data released in April last year. Flights to Macau connect the city to dozens destinations spread between Greater China, Southeast Asia and Northeast Asia.
Macau received more than 3 million visitors during the first two months of this year, down nearly 57 percent compared to a year ago, according to official data. In those two months, only 331,710 visitors have entered Macau by air, and 68 percent of them were mainlanders Chinese.
The Macau airport operator, also known as CAM, said in a separate release on Tuesday that it had been working with the Macau government on implementing precautionary measures regarding the spread of Covid-19, and preparatory steps for an anticipated recovery in the aviation industry. Tuesday’s release has also mentioned an expected improvement in the aviation sector in the second quarter this year, if the pandemic is contained.
