The territory’s flag carrier has enjoyed exclusive rights for the last 25 years but new legislation is being drawn up that will liberalise the sector.
Air China
However, total airport arrivals in the first quarter of 2023 are still only less than a third of what they were during the same period before the pandemic.
New figures released by the airline’s majority shareholder show that Macao’s flag carrier racked up cumulative losses of almost 2.9 billion patacas during the three-year pandemic.
Officials record more than 76,000 passengers and 620 flights during holiday week; Air Asia, China Southern and other regional airlines to resume operations soon.
Passenger numbers increased by 27.95 per cent to 698,500 last year, but still fall a long way short of the 3 million in 2019.
To alleviate losses in 2020 due to the pandemic, Air Macau leases five of its planes to Air China for a period of three years.
The Macao government extended Air Macau’s public concession service for three more years from 9 November, according to the Official Gazette (BO) today.
