GGRAsia – May hols air traffic to be 53pct of 2019: Macau airport

May hols air traffic to be 53pct of 2019: Macau airport

Apr 28, 2023 Newsdesk Latest News, Macau, Top of the deck

Macau International Airport will have an aggregate 72,000 inbound and outbound passenger journeys for the April 29 to May 3 holiday period, about “53 percent” of the passenger volume it handled in the same holiday season in 2019, said its operator in response to an enquiry from GGRAsia.

During the five-day holiday designated by China’s State Council, Macau’s airport will be handling on average, “approximately 120 flights and 14,400 in passenger traffic daily”, with both volumes surpassing the daily average number in April, Macau International Airport Co Ltd (CAM) additionally stated in its reply.

The city’s airport mostly handles flights to and from the Chinese mainland, and for other short-haul regional destinations. CAM’s reply did not mention what proportion of holiday-season flights would be serving the mainland, and the proportion for overseas markets.

The city’s air hub had a total of 338,579 visitor arrivals in the first quarter of this year, of which 85.8 percent involved travel via mainland China, accordng to the latest available data from Macau’s Statistics and Census Service. In the same quarter in 2019, the airport had more than 953,300 visitor arrivals, with 64 percent of such volume coming from mainland China.

On Tuesday, the head of the Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO) suggested the city might receive a daily average of 70,000 visitors or more during the imminent holiday break surrounding Labour Day on May 1.

For Hong Kong – the second most significant feeder market for Macau’s tourism and hospitality trade – the holiday is confined to May 1.

In other transport-related news, ferry operator TurboJET announced additional sailings between Hong Kong and Macau from May 1. As a result, the interval between services will narrow on certain routes at certain times of day. Previously the operator had said that services would be increased only after May 1.

From May 1, daily night sailings run until 11.30pm, although post-midnight sailings are still unavailable.