Macao and the Philippines ink new bilateral Air Services Agreement and Memorandum of Understanding, significantly relaxing capacity limits and fully opening fifth freedom rights for cargo operations

MACAU, October 11 - The Civil Aviation Authority of Macao SAR and the Civil Aeronautics Board of the Republic of the Philippines held bilateral Air Services Agreement (ASA) talks in Macao on 8 and 9 October 2026, with the initialing of the new ASA and the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on 9 October, relaxing existing capacity restrictions and opening up fifth freedom rights for cargo operations. This new Agreement is also the first bilateral ASA to be successfully established since the current-term SAR Government took office.

The new ASA supersedes the old document which was signed on 18 July 1997. Under the new Agreement, passenger capacity restrictions have been significantly adjusted. The Manila capacity has now been increased three times to 20,000 seats; for other routes, there are no capacity restrictions. In terms of cargo operations, the Clark route continues to have no capacity restrictions, while the cargo quota for other routes has been substantially raised by two times to 600 tonnes per party per week. Furthermore, both parties have agreed to fully liberalize fifth freedom rights for cargo operations, providing freighter services with greater commercial expansion opportunities for operating routes between the two places.

After Macao and the Philippines have signed the first bilateral ASA, to meet development needs, the aeronautical authorities of both places conducted four updates to the MOU. Given that more than a decade has passed since the last update, the original terms may not accurately reflect the current Macao’s aviation development objectives. The newly reached Agreement further relaxes restrictions, aligning with the Macao SAR Government’s objective of consolidating its presence in the Southeast Asian market, and helping to deepen Macao’s positioning as the “World Tourism and Leisure Centre”.

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