MCIA T1 Check-in Areas | Photo courtesy of Norman Mendoza (via Morexette Erram)
CEBU CITY, Philippines — The Mactan Cebu International Airport Authority (MCIAA) recorded double-digit decline rates in airport traffic from January to May 2020.
Statistics posted by MCIAA on their official website showed that all air, passenger, and cargo traffic in Mactan Cebu International Airport (MCIA) for this year was lower compared to 2019.
The MCIAA is the government body co-managing MCIA (Mactan Cebu International Airport), the country’s second busiest airport next to the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA).
From January to May, the MCIA only accommodated a total of 2.4 million passengers, both arriving via domestic and international flights.
It was a 54 percent plunge, according to MCIAA’s computation, since a whopping 5.3 million passengers went in and out of MCIA for the same period in 2019.
Domestic passengers contributed majority of this year’s foot traffic in the MCIA with 1.7 million.
However, the MCIAA stated that the numbers were 53 percent lower compared to those recorded in 2019 which was at 3.6 million.
With travel bans in place following lockdowns in most countries due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the number of international passengers dipped by 56 percent. The MCIA accommodated only 751, 335 passengers from international flights from January to May in 2020.
It was 1.7 million last year.
Air traffic was not spared by the ongoing public health crisis.
The MCIA saw only 23,572 flights, both international and domestic, being served for the first five months of this year. It was a 47 percent decline from 2019 where authorities recorded 44,539 flights within the same period.
The MCIA accommodated a total of 18,075 domestic flights, and 5,497 international flights for this year.
The volume of cargo going in and out of MCIA also slid down by 37 percent. Airport authorities recorded a total of 18.6 million kilograms of cargo handled during the first five months of 2020.
Last year, it was around 30 million kilograms.
Since June 6, commercial domestic flights at the MCIA have resumed operations while international ones remain suspended. /dbs