Flight volumes at Macao’s airport are 70 percent of what they were at this point in 2019, according to the facility’s marketing chief Eric Fong.
Although passenger volumes – at less than 10,000 a day – are only 30 or 40 percent of what they were in the same pre-pandemic month, Fong believes they will begin to exceed that number in the summer as airlines add more flights.
He told the Chinese-language newspaper Macao Daily that the airport was in discussions with carriers from Malaysia, Cambodia, Vietnam, the Maldives and Palau, hoping to open the latter two routes in the third quarter of the year.
[See more: Where can your Macao passport take you?]
Chan Weng Hong, director of the Civil Aviation Authority, meanwhile told TDM that 43 destinations were now accessible from Macao by air – 27 in Greater China and 16 internationally. He estimated that the airport would be handling about 480 flights per week by the end of this month.
The news comes amid a surge in private jet travel, said to be approaching 50 percent of its pre-pandemic levels as casino operators fly in free-spending foreign punters.
Air Macau is also reportedly logging some 7,000 international reservations a week and says its bookings are growing by about 20 percent weekly.
—With additional reporting by Mani Fong
