Macau’s airport may see a “20 percent” year-on-year increase in passenger volume and flight movements respectively, for full-year 2024, said the facility’s operator, Macau International Airport Co Ltd (CAM), in a Wednesday press release.
The forecast is up on previous commentary from CAM’s marketing department director, Eric Fong Hio Kin. He told the local press earlier this month that his company had expected the airport to see a “10 percent to 15 percent” increase in passenger volume handled 2024, compared to last year’s 5.15-million figure.
In 2023, the airport handled an aggregate of over 42,500 aircraft movements, according to CAM’s Wednesday release.
The release from CAM did not elaborate on why it had upped its 2024 flight traffic forecast. But the company noted that it was anticipating a “40-percent” increase in business-aviation movements in 2024, compared to the 923 in 2023.
Currently, Macau’s air hub has commercial-flight links with a number of cities in mainland China and Taiwan. Outside the Greater China region, Macau has regular flight connections with major airports in Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia.
The airport operator mentioned in the release that for the Chinese New Year holiday in February, there were already also a number of charter flights rostered that would connect the city to places in Greater China and Southeast Asia.
“There will be 13 additional charter flights during the Chinese New Year holiday period,” said CAM, noting that tally includes seven flights to mainland China, three to Taipei, in Taiwan; and three to Southeast Asian destinations: respectively Bangkok in Thailand, Cam Ranh in Vietnam, and Phnom Penh in Cambodia.
In 2023, Macau International Airport handled an aggregate of about 2.13 million inbound passengers for the full year, of which 73.8 percent – or about 1.57 million – were from mainland China, according to the latest data published by Statistics and Census Service.
The 2.13 million visitor arrivals at the airport represented only 7.6 percent of the aggregate 28.21 million inbound visitors to Macau as a whole in 2023, according to official data.
