Shenzhen airport
The Civil Aviation Authority of Macao (AACM) has stated in an email to the Times that they “do not have information about the opening of new airports in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) region.”
The emailed statement was in reply to a request from the Times for more information on how three new airports planned for nearby Shenzhen might affect operations and aviation passenger traffic in the MSAR.
The three airports – which will specialize in serving commercial airlines, seaplanes and helicopters, respectively – are intended to transform Shenzhen into southern China’s transport hub.
In fact, as AACM pointed out in its statement, the entire PRD region is intended to serve as a major hub for international shipping, logistics, trade and aviation tourism. Therefore the expansion at Shenzhen represents a sharpening of the city’s competitive edge within the region, rather than a strategy to surpass other nearby facilities.
Moreover, the Macau International Airport will remain an important “spoke and hub center in Asia,” wrote AACM, adding that “with the convenient express link facilities in our airport, passengers from mainland China can actually fly to their final destinations via Macau International Airport and vice versa.”
“This is actually quite commonly seen in tourists everywhere in the world who will often fly to the final destination through transiting to and from other points,” the organization finished by saying.
While the aviation authority did not comment on the scope of cooperation between itself and counterpart authorities in Guangdong Province, it did stress that a cooperation mechanism known as A5 exists between the various airports of the PRD.
In accordance with this cooperation mechanism, each airport follows its own market “positioning” in which they carry out their development and marketing.
In Macau’s case this means positioning itself as a small- and medium-sized multifunctional airport aiming to serve both local residents and those who reside in the west of Guangdong Province into the future.
With the plans for the renewal and expansion of the Macau International Airport now finalized, the airport can expect an improved passenger terminal in the near future, connected with the Light Rail Transit, leading to it handling up to 7.5 million passengers per year. DB
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