Air Macau restarts flights to mainland

Air Macau, the flag carrier of the Macao Special Administrative Region, said it plans to gradually resume more flights between Macao and the Chinese mainland based on market conditions, and Macao's tourism market is expected to catch the last swell of summer tourism in the country.

In late June, with a resurgence of COVID-19 cases in Macao, a number of governments of Chinese mainland cities such as Zhuhai, Guangdong province, implemented measures of 7-day centralized isolation at hotels and 3-day health monitoring at home for all people entering Zhuhai from Macao.

Starting Aug 3, with local cases in Macao getting under control, the port between Zhuhai and Macao started to implement quarantine-free entry. Such measures have been put into operation between Macao and other cities.

Since late August, Air Macau said it plans to keep its roundtrip flights connecting Macao to Beijing as well as Hangzhou, Zhejiang province to once daily. The carrier will also operate four round-trip flights a week between Macao and Nanjing, Jiangsu province and between Macao and Chengdu, Sichuan province. Starting Aug 13, Air Macau started round-trip flights once a week between Macao and Shanghai as well as Nanning, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region. When local cases reemerged in Macao, Air Macau only operated flights connecting the city with Beijing, Chengdu and Nanning, the airline said.

With the resumption of major routes and gradual increase of flights, the carrier said it would help promote economic exchanges, personnel communications and cargo flows between Macao and the Chinese mainland cities and create favorable conditions for mutually beneficial cooperation.

The local tourism bureau of Macao said it plans to further strengthen cooperation with e-commerce platforms, online travel agencies, launch various travel packages and attract more travelers from Guangdong province to make short-haul trips to Macao.

During the May Day holiday from April 30 to May 4, about 124,000 travelers from the Chinese mainland visited Macao, and the average hotel occupancy rate was 59.5 percent, according to the local tourism bureau.

zhuwenqian@chinadaily.com.cn