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Gavin Chin and his wife are among dozens of Malaysians and Singaporeans who have been trapped in Macau.

Trapped in Macau: the Singaporeans and Malaysians desperate to get home

  • With borders shut and no direct flights home due to the coronavirus pandemic, dozens have been stranded after losing jobs in the tourism-reliant Chinese city
  • Some are too pregnant or too unwell to transit through Hong Kong and are pinning their hopes on their consulates helping to organise a repatriation flight
Gavin Chin, a Malaysian living in Macau, is desperate to hop on the next flight back to his hometown of Sabah. He was working as a diver technician on The House of Dancing Water show in the Chinese special administrative region when he was laid off in November last year as the coronavirus pandemic took its toll on the Macau economy. But Chin, 36, faces a problem: there is no flight home.
Dozens of Singaporeans and Malaysians share his plight. With borders shut due to the pandemic and no direct flights between Macau and either country, they have been left stranded and are lobbying consulates and airline carriers to help.

Some in the group have banded together to arrange a repatriation flight in April but others cannot wait. Chin’s wife may be too pregnant by then to be allowed to fly on a commercial airline.

“My wife is five months pregnant and I am jobless in Macau, so we think it’s best for both of us to go back to Sabah,” he said.

Casinos and hotels illuminated at night on the Cotai strip in Macau. The Macau economy is reliant on tourism. Photo: Bloomberg
He saw two choices: wait for a repatriation flight or travel to neighbouring Hong Kong, where he would need to serve a three-week quarantine in a hotel before flying back home.

Chin said it was possible for him and his wife to opt for the latter option, but he knew of others, who were either in later stages of pregnancy or ill and wanting to head back to Singapore for medical treatment, who would not be able to.

“We all really hope that the Malaysia and Singapore consulates would be able to help us [get a] chartered flight,” said Chin.

Agnes Goh, a Singaporean who has lived in Macau and Hong Kong for the past 30 years and has been coordinating flight efforts, said about 50 Malaysians and Singaporeans had expressed interest in a repatriation flight.

But she was unsure it would go ahead. Most airlines, including the Malaysian low-cost carrier AirAsia, required at least 70 passengers for a flight to be chartered, she said.

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The volunteer, 55, started rallying people together for the April flight after the Lunar New Year period last month, when she saw some Singaporeans and Malaysians getting laid off. Most of them were working in the casino and food industries, sectors that are heavily dependent on international tourists and have been dealt a severe blow by the pandemic. Last year, tourist arrivals in Macau dropped 85 per cent year-on-year.

Goh said even in a normal year March was typically a “lull” period, when retrenchments in tourism-related sectors would increase, and the coronavirus had made things worse.

“There was an increasing number of people who got fired unexpectedly recently, and a lot of them got their accommodation cut off immediately,” she said. “Macau is going through a very depressing period. All the casinos and hotels are badly impacted by the pandemic.”

01:30

Macau casinos will close for at least two weeks after hotel worker found with coronavirus infection

Macau casinos will close for at least two weeks after hotel worker found with coronavirus infection

As of December last year there were about 180,000 non-resident workers in Macau, but there is no official breakdown for how many are from Singapore or Malaysia.

Goh said she had planned two repatriation flights from Macau since the beginning of the pandemic, with the help of the Malaysian consulate. The first batch, comprising about 26 Malaysians, left in mid-November. They were “fortunate”, she said, because the Hong Kong government had granted them a quarantine exemption so they could fly back to Malaysia from the Chinese city.

The second batch was made up of 60 individuals, mostly from Malaysia and a handful from Singapore. Because it was a bigger group Goh, with the help of the Malaysian consulate, was able to charter an AirAsia flight direct from Macau.

But Goh said that this time around the situation was much more complicated as there were pregnant women and individuals who were “very sickly” and seeking “urgent” medical attention back home. These cases included a Singaporean who had suffered a heart attack in Macau and another who had been feeling acute pain in her womb.

Goh said she was “begging” people not to drop out from the repatriation flight as it would make the “mission” impossible. She has been sharing daily updates and getting people to register for the flight on a Facebook group made up of hundreds of Malaysians and Singaporeans living in Macau. AirAsia, she said, had refused to confirm whether the flight could go ahead.

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In response to queries Celia Lao, chief executive of AirAsia Hong Kong and Macau, said the carrier was looking to achieve “a minimum of 60 passengers” for the repatriation flight, and was ready to provide “full support” to the Malaysian consulate to facilitate travel arrangements.

Meanwhile, the Malaysian consulate in Hong Kong told This Week In Asia that it was working with AirAsia towards mounting a “special flight” from Macau to Kuala Lumpur on April 8. The consulate would notify the registered passengers once details were finalised, which it expected to be “very soon”. The flight would also be open to passengers to transit through the Kuala Lumpur International Airport if the transit time was less than 24 hours, it said, adding that it was also working with the Singapore consulate to help Singapore transit passengers.

The Malaysian consulate on Thursday confirmed an AirAsia flight would depart Macau for Kuala Lumpur at 2.35pm local time, and that it would cost MOP$6,950 (US$870) per passenger. It added, however, that the carrier could update the price if the target of 60 passengers was not met.

The Singapore consulate confirmed separately that Singaporeans may take the same flight to Kuala Lumpur and transit to the city state. Singapore’s foreign affairs ministry later said on Friday that its consulate in Hong Kong was in touch with nine Singaporeans seeking to return home.

Goh said earlier in the week that she had been constantly chasing the consulates for a reply.

She added: “I am angry and stressed. I cannot sleep every night.”

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