Macau International Airport | Six new routes this year as expansion kicked up a notch

CAM Director of Marketing Eric Fong (center)

Six routes will be launched this year between the Macau International Airport (MIA) and various short and mid-haul destinations, including a renewed route to Moscow that will commence operations in May 2017. The announcement of the new routes comes as the airport’s expansion project draws closer to completing its first stage; the opening of the Passenger Terminal Building – North Extension.

The information was disseminated during a press conference hosted yesterday afternoon by the Macau International Airport Company (CAM) which provided an update on the airport’s infrastructure development works.

The new routes, which will be launched at various points throughout the year, are Macau-Harbin, Macau-Taichung, Macau-Hanoi, Macau-DaNang, Macau-Siem Reap and the Moscow route.

According to representatives of CAM, the new routes will help to increase the volume of passengers using Macau’s airport as well as “change the current passenger market structure.”

The routes will be complemented by a general improvement in the airport’s ability to handle passenger volumes, aided by the opening of the Passenger Terminal Building – North Extension this year. The extension will constitute a four- storey building with a floor area of 14,000 square meters, which will enable the airport to handle an annual passenger volume of around 7.5 to 7.8 million.

A further study is being conducted in line with the Civic Aviation Authority’s “Macau International Airport Master Plan”, to examine the possibility of opening an additional southern extension along with a multi-storey car park. In concert with the northern extension, this would permit the airport to facilitate the travel of between nine and 10 million passengers per year.

Also in the works this year is an “optimization” project for the current parking stands of aircraft based at MIA. Currently. the airport accommodates 24 parking stands for both passenger and business aircraft, however a project that will launch later this year will begin the process of converting the space into 25 spots for passenger aircraft and 15 spaces for business planes.

The airport’s Master Plan will cover the strategic vision of CAM until 2040, it was informed at the press conference. For last year alone, the total investment into the airport improvement program amounted to more than MOP248 million, 68 percent of which was spent on the extension project.

It was also stated yesterday that over the next few years, the company will continue to encourage growth in the number of routes and a greater frequency of flights.

Over the last few years, a number of new routes have opened and closed after operating for less than a year, and in some cases just months. Asked about the ability of the expanded airport to prevent such sudden closures as the facility becomes more prominent in the region, CAM Director of Marketing Eric Fong said that, despite the route closures, “for the past few years passenger and [flight] movement growth has been very stable.”

“We cannot control that airlines open and close these routes,” he added.

The company executives also stated that they had no information to provide on rumors that suggested the merging of the airports of the Pearl River Delta region. They said that they are unaware of the source of these rumors but have confirmed with their counterparts in mainland China that there is no substance to them.

Lisbon-Macau flight back in discussion

On the sidelines of the press conference yesterday, Eric Fong told reporters that the company is currently in discussion with two airlines over the possibility of reopening a direct route between Macau and Portugal.

“We have started to talk to some airlines though there are some limitations [with establishing this route],” said Fong. “It would be a popular route but the airlines need to start their own analysis. We are still working on that.”

Pressed further on the topic, Fong would not identify the carriers in question and said that the proposal was being driven by CAM. “It is an initiative from the airport company,” he said, “not the airlines.”

Meanwhile, direct flights between Beijing and Lisbon are scheduled to commence from June this year, according to an announcement made by Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa during a visit to China last year.

While the route has been a long-standing objective of the governments of both Portugal and China, few further details have been revealed so far.

There is also speculation that an additional flight will offer a route between Lisbon and Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang Province.