The Macau International Airport recorded a total of 7.64 million passengers in 2024, an increase of 48 percent from 2023, airport operator CAM announced in a statement yesterday.
The statement underlined that last year’s number of passengers was the highest over recent years.
The statement also said that the local airport recorded over 59,000 aircraft movements in 2024, a growth of 41 percent from 2023.
The number of airport passengers has been gradually recovering since early 2023 after the COVID-19 pandemic affected Macau for three years between early 2020 and late 2022, which severely impacted the city’s economy in general, its gaming and tourism sectors in particular.
In pre-pandemic 2019, the airport reached its highest number of passengers at 9.6 million. During the three-year pandemic, according to the CAM website, the number of airport passengers only stood at around 1.17 million, 1.14 million and 599,000 respectively in 2020, 2021 and 2022.
In 2023, the first post-pandemic year, the airport recorded 5.15 million passengers, returning to 54 percent of the level recorded in pre-pandemic 2019.
Last year’s number of 7.64 million returned to 79.5 percent of the 2019 level.
The airport’s designed maximum capacity had been six million passengers per year since it started operating in November 1995, before its passenger terminal building was expanded in 2018 when the maximum capacity was raised to 7.8 million passengers per year. The terminal building underwent another expansion in 2020 and it was completed in 2022, raising the handling capacity to the current 10 million.
The airport’s large-scale expansion project got off the ground late last year, which will raise its annual passenger-handling capacity to 13 million when it is scheduled to be completed in 2030, after which extra space will be available for further development if necessary, which will ultimately raise the airport’s annual passenger-handling capacity to up to 15 million.
According to the CAM website, the airport recorded 6.6 million passengers in 2016, breaking its then annual passenger-handling capacity of six million.
Afterwards, the number of airport passengers continued to rise to 7.16 million in 2017, 8.26 million in 2018, before reaching its standing record of 9.6 million in 2019.
Scores of passengers queue at the local airport’s security check to the boarding area in November last year. – Photos: Tony Wong
This photo taken in November last year shows aircraft parked at the local airport.
