Gov’t suspends plans to use part of Taipa ferry terminal as airport terminal 2

The government has suspended its plan to reassign part of the Taipa Ferry Terminal facilities at Pac On for use by the Macau International Airport (MIA) as a second terminal facility due to a “slower than expected” passenger growth at the MIA, the Follow-up Committee for Public Finance Affairs of the Legislative Assembly (AL) learned from government officials.

The information was shared yesterday in a media briefing after a meeting from the AL Committee that served for the approval and signing of the final report on the inspection of the government’s Investment and Development Expenditure Plan (PIDDA) for the last quarter (Q4) of 2023 and first quarter (Q1) of this year.

The Committee had noticed that the government had previously suspended the budget execution for the proposed plan and so questioned the executive on the reasons justifying the decision.

In response, the government defended the decision with a “slow recovery of airport passenger traffic after the epidemic [which] in 2023 was only about 5.15 million passengers,” the report notes.

The executive also noticed that the airport’s passenger traffic volume in Q1 of this year reached 1.8 million passengers and has recovered to around 77% of the peak in the same period of 2019.” Even so, it is understood that “the current capacity of the airport’s passenger terminal is still is sufficient to meet the needs of the current development of air traffic, as the terminal’s capacity is 10 million passengers per year. Therefore, at this moment, the construction of the airport’s second terminal is suspended.”

The government observed that the decision also considered the fact that the current terminal underwent expansion works, on the south side of the passenger terminal, that were completed in 2022, reaffirming that this expansion is sufficient to meet the needs of current development.

“In the future, taking into account the forecast for the development of Macau’s air traffic and the development plan for airport facilities, the need to reopen the airport’s Second Terminal project will be studied in due time,” the report concluded.

Taipa heliport ready in 2H of 2025

The same committee also addressed the progress on work related to the construction of the heliport of the Taipa Ferry Terminal.

The executive said that works are being prepared so that the existing heliport facilities can be modified to meet the operation requirements, pointing out that the new heliport facility should be ready to enter into operation in the second half of 2025.

Officials also noted that, by changing the operating and management model of the heliport, “it is expected that a more open environment will be provided, attracting more helicopter airlines to provide their services.”

Currently, the only helicopter flight operator in Macau is Sky Shuttle, offering some 30 weekly flights (in each direction) between Macau and Hong Kong as well as five weekly flights (in each direction) connecting Macau to the city of Shenzhen.

The resumption of the helicopter service only took place in late January this year after being interrupted for four full years due to the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020.

PIDDA execution rate increasing

According to the president of the AL Committee, lawmaker Wong Kit Cheng, the PIDDA execution rate has been showing some improvement already in Q4 of 2023, improvements that continued in Q1 of 2024 when compared to the same period last year.

Regarding the PIDDA of 2023, the execution rate was 85.4%, while the rate of budget usage reached 90%. Wong noted that these rates have recorded slight increases, respectively by 1.3% and 5.2% when compared to 2022.

The execution rate of the PIDDA in Q1 this year has reached 29.8% with a budget execution rate of 79.4%. Such figures represent an increase in both rates, respectively by 8% and 10.4% when compared year-on-year with the Q1 of 2023.
Wong noted that for the Committee this means that the works developed on the promotion of the increase of execution rates were satisfactory, she said, recognizing the effort of the government to present more accurate information and keep the Committee up-to-date with changes.