Local airport operator CAM said on Wednesday that it would push ahead with developing more facilities at the airport, to cope with the rising number of passengers for the next two decades.
The company hosted a press conference about its future infrastructure development plan, at Grand Hyatt Hotel in Cotai.
The Civil Aviation Authority of Macau (AACM) on Monday released the revised version of a development plan for the airport for the next 20 years.
The revised development plan forecasts the number of passengers to reach up to seven million by 2019, 11 million by 2037, and 15 million by 2040.
The number of passenger arrivals and departures broke the six million mark in late November last year, its designed maximum capacity.
The plan lays out what facilities the airport will build, and the modification of its existing facilities, in three phases, to cope with the rising number of passengers.
The release of the revised development plan came after a Hong Kong newspaper report on Monday, which claimed that Macau’s airport is likely to be closed in the long term, and that the operations would be transferred to the airport in Zhuhai, as part of a long-term plan for the integration of the two cities.
The Civil Aviation Authority released a statement on Monday dismissing the report, saying the report was not true.
According to the revised development plan, which can be accessed on the AACM website, the civil aviation regulator began drafting the development plan in 2010, the draft version of which was completed in 2011.
According to the website, the regulator later revised the draft version, and the revised version was completed at the end of 2015.
For the airport’s development, the plan says that the government will apply to the central government this year for land reclamation in the waters between the two taxiways that link the runway and the apron, as well as the surrounding sea area.
(Macau News / The Macau Post Daily)
