Macao’s airport saw a 70.6 percent year-on-year hike in plane traffic during the first seven months of the year, official data shows.
Between January and July, 33,035 commercial flights either arrived or departed from the airport – up from 19,366 in the first seven months of 2023. However, the number of take-offs and landings was still 9,080 less than what was clocked in the same period of 2019, before Covid-19 seriously disrupted global flight networks.
The gross weight of air cargo more than doubled during that time, reaching 57,790 tonnes.
[See more: Where can I fly to from Macao? Here’s a list of places you can reach directly]
Nonetheless, the city’s government recently put plans to expand Macao’s existing airport terminal on hold due to lower than anticipated passenger numbers. The airport only processed 5.15 million passengers last year, just over half of 2019’s figure (and a 3.73 million passenger year-on-year rise).
The slow return of airborne passengers was in spite of concerted efforts by the airport’s operator and the Macao Government Tourism Office to boost the inflow of international tourists to the SAR, and both the numbers of airlines and flight routes on offer.
The Statistics and Census Service (known by its Portuguese initials DSEC) also announced that the gross weight of containerised cargo reaching Macao by land grew by 110 percent (totalling 40,635 tonnes) during that time. Most cargoes arrived by sea, however – amounting to 114,212 tonnes between January and July, a relatively small increase of just 1.5 percent year-on-year.
