Asian airline, airport representatives gather in Macao to seek new air route

MACAO, April 14 (Xinhua) -- The "Regional Asia-Routes Development Forum 2008 Macao", inaugurated here on Monday, drew a large number of business representatives of the Asian aviation industry to the city, who met and discussed new air route development and business opportunities in the air services.

Over 400 delegates from major airlines and airports in Asia and Europe attended the three-day event, which was hosted by the Macao International Airport Company Ltd.

Although Macao's aviation sector is going through a healthy growth, it still shares the same challenges with its international counterparts, such as the raising of fuel prices, the increase in security measures resulting in longer queuing time for passengers and the capacity constraints caused by infrastructures issues, said Liu Suning, executive director of Macao International Airport Co. Ltd.

Therefore, the forum "will be a starting point for a great and hopefully productive relationship between the airport marketing people and the airline route developers," said Liu, adding that her company has started to reap the benefits of these relationships in recent times with the introduction of six new airlines to the local network in the past six months.

"Regional Asia - Routes Development Forum" is organized as an annual event by the Route Development Group (RDG) which was based in the United Kingdom. The 2007 edition of the forum was held in Sweden.