Air
Macau will add another aircraft to its fleet this week in an effort to expand its business while taking advantage of the long-delayed direct flights between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan.
After introducing a 122-seat A319 Airbus this June, the air carrier will have another plane of the same type on August 21, making its total number of aircraft 11, a spokeswoman announced on Thursday.
As of this Friday, 67 flights will run each week between
Macao and Beijing, Shanghai, Xiamen, Guilin, Haikou, Nanjing, Ningbo,
Kunming and Chengdu.
Weekly flights between
Macao and Taipei have grown to 79.
As flights between the mainland and Taiwan are still banned, passengers who want to fly across the Taiwan Straits have to transfer from
Hong Kong or Macao, or even Viet Nam and the Phillipines.
Although it is a relatively small air operator, Air
Macau has grown quickly thanks to the increase in passengers travelling across the Straits.
The total number of people crossing the Straits in 2000 surpassed 3 million. Despite the impact of September 11, the number of travellers was still up 15 per cent to 3.7 million, according to a report in Sanlian Weekly.
Statistics from Taiwan media show that more than 700,000 people went to the mainland via
Macao airport in 2000.
Air
Macau earned more than 5 billion Taiwan dollars (US$150 million) a year from Taiwan passengers arriving in Macao, regardless of continued flights to mainland cities, said a Taiwan weekly New News.
The performance has won Air
Macau second place among Taiwan's overseas air operators, following Hong Kong's Dragon Air, the weekly said.
For years, Air
Macau has provided attractive transfer services in which passengers do not have to change planes when transferring at the airport in Macao, but the flight numbers are changed.
Company spokesman said it would take only 40 minutes or less for passengers to transfer at
Macao airport.
Air
Macau was founded in 1994, with Chinese assets accounting for 51 per cent of the total.
