Returnees stranded in Europe making Plan B for charter flights

Screenshot of a private jet operator’s estimate for a Macau-London flight in January

In light of exiguous Macau-bound flight options, some edgy flyers overseas have taken it upon themselves to arrange a charter flight, hoping to return to Macau from Portugal by mid-January.
A social media post regarding the arrangement of a direct charter flight from Lisbon to Macau — scheduled to take off on January 11 — was published yesterday on the Facebook page of the International Ladies Club of Macau (ILCM).
Luisa Empis de Bragança, a Macau citizen who has been living in the city for 19 years but is now stranded in Europe, initiated the plan. She has been asking for a quotation for a private jet since December last year, when she went to Europe for personal matters.
“I want to get back to Macau, that’s where I’ve lived,” she told the Times about the rationale for deploying a charter flight yesterday in a phone interview.
She also reserved two seats on the Amsterdam-Tokyo route for January 20 and the Tokyo-Macau route operated by Air Macau on January 21 — one of the few routes by far for stranded passengers in Europe to come back to Macau by this month, according to the Tourism Crisis Management Office (GGCT).
Bragança said that around 20 people were interested in taking the charter flight, but they are now prioritizing this route the government recommended earlier this week, predominately driven by its relatively lower price.
“We gathered some friends. We had a Whatsapp group and we discussed alternatives [to return to Macau],” Bragança spoke of their challenging moments after Taiwan decided to suspend all transit flights through its airports since January 1, in response to a discovery of the first imported case of mutated coronavirus strain within the territory.
Ever since, she and many more suddenly found themselves stranded in Europe, without practical flight options to come back — as Taiwan no longer functions as a transit hub for returnees.
Bragança is now regarding the charter flight as a “Plan B,” just in case the “Plan A” of Amsterdam to Macau routes falls through.
“In these pandemic times, we always have to have Plan A and Plan B on hand,” she said.
According to Bragança, the charter flight, if it comes to fruition, will accommodate a total of 32 passengers and charge every passenger around USD7,100, or MOP57,000, for the one-way journey — which Bragança said is not a “big difference” compared to the MOP45,000 she paid for business class seats on the flights from Amsterdam to Macau via Tokyo.
According to the website of evoJets, another provider offering charter flights, a direct flight for 35 passengers from Lisbon to Macau would cost up to USD280,700.
Meanwhile, the Times is aware that similar initiatives were also launched by a few more residents.
The GGCT confirmed with the Times earlier this week that they will soon touch base with people in Europe, and advise them of the flight arrangements of the Amsterdam-Tokyo and Tokyo-Macau flights, a circumvention that will take passengers around 24 hours. Honey Tsang