The aeronautical authorities of mainland China and Macao signed the new Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on air transport on 27 November 2018 in Beijing.
The aeronautical authorities of mainland China and Macao signed the new Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on air transport today (27 November 2018) in Beijing. The new arrangement increases the destination points in mainland China to 68, extends the destination area for helicopter scheduled services and charters, allows the inter-modal code sharing service and so on.
The air transport market in mainland China has continued to grow in a speedy manner. With the closer tides on economy and trade between mainland China and Macao after the SAR’s handover to China, the number of air passengers between the two places increases year on year. In order to allow the legal framework governing the air transport market to cope with the market need, the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) and the Civil Aviation Authority of Macao SAR (AACM) met in Beijing on 26 and 27 November 2018 to hold air talks. The discussions were fruitful; the two sides signed the new MOU today (27 November 2018) with more liberal provisions.
According to the new MOU, the number of destination points in mainland China is increased from 57 to 68; the capacity for Shanghai (the Pudong & the Hongqiao airports) is increased from 78 to 96 flights per week by each side; the capacity for Beijing remains at 56 flights per week by each side; the original capacity limitations for Shenzhen are eliminated; all other destinations are not bound by capacity restrictions.
The two delegations shared views and opinions on the economic growth of the Pearl River Delta (PRD) Region under the incentives of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Big Bay Area. They believe that the helicopter scheduled services and the charters which aim at high-end passengers will have good prospects and therefore agree to extend the destination area from only Shenzhen in the old MOU to the whole Guangdong Province in the new text.
In addition, facing the potentials driven by the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, the two parties agree to implement the inter-modal code sharing service. Under this service, the designated airlines of both sides can cooperate with the sea transport operators and the road transport operators in the PRD to provide an extended service of the flight originating from Macao or destining for Macao. In the first phase, the sea-air link can connect to Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Zhongshan, Dongguan and Zhuhai while the road-air link can connect to the whole Guangdong Province. Both parties also agree to study on the extension of the inter-modal code sharing service to other cities and explore the possibility of the rail-air link in the future.
The new MOU, which comes into immediate effect, was signed by the Deputy Director General of Air Transport of CAAC, Mr. Yu Biao and the President of AACM, Mr. Chan Weng Hong.