Gov’t undecided on airport expansion budget

The government has not yet decided on the budget for the expansion of the Macau International Airport (MIA), the Follow-up Committee for Land and Public Concession Affairs of the Legislative Assembly (AL) reported yesterday.
Yesterday, the local government took the members of the AL committee to visit the site of the future airport extension.
According to Ella Lei, chairman of the AL committee, the local government is still unclear regarding the amount of money to be spent on the project, as well as the commencement date of the construction work.
However, it is generally expected that the government will be able to start building two facilities in 2021.
One of the two facilities will be a fenced-off corridor connecting the Macau Ferry Terminal to the airport boarding area. The second project is a bridge outside the corridor. The fenced-off corridor will be used to transport passengers from the terminal to the airport by shuttle bus. The bridge will facilitate public access to the enclosed area. The airport expansion is expected to serve as another terminal of MIA. The local government plans to relocate four airlines to Terminal 2, which is expected to accommodate 1.5 to 2 million passengers annually.
During yesterday’s meeting with the government, the aviation authority said that Macau is still waiting for the Central Government’s approval for the expansion plan.
The local government’s plan is to relocate the helicopter service to the future Taipa airport. As explained by Lei, the local government will sign two concessions: one related to the helicopter service relocation, and another to facilitate the approval for the use of the Taipa Ferry Terminal facilities.
Also during yesterday’s meeting, government representatives including Secretary for Transport and Public Works Raimundo Arrais do Rosário revealed that the SAR government will not consider the possibility of building a second airport runway.
On the sidelines of the press conference of the AL committee, the Secretary commented on the future transportation hub.
“Together with Terminal 2, Taipa Ferry Terminal will have ferries [and] Light Rapid Transit. Later, helicopters will move there as well,” said Rosário. “We have also started the construction of the fourth bridge between Macau and Taipa. The bridge links [Taipa Ferry Terminal] as well.”
According to Rosário, the fourth cross-sea bridge will directly extend to the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge artificial island.
Rosário believes that Terminal 2 will divert some traffic flow for MIA.
According to the airport master plan report in March 2019, which was submitted to the central government, the plan noted that the expansion would be rolled out in two phases.
The first development phase has been set to handle a capacity of 11 million passengers – which corresponds to the baseline forecast traffic for 2025 – while the second phase will be able to accommodate up to 15 million passengers.
This phase corresponds to the level of demand projected in 2033 and 2041 for the high scenario and baseline, respectively. This master plan was approved by the SAR government in July 2016 and incorporated into the Five-Year Development Plan of the Macau SAR (2016-2020).