THAILAND. Airports of Thailand (AOT) has revised downward its passenger forecasts for its financial years through to 2024, due to the continuing impact of COVID-19 on traffic.
AOT now expects to serve 31.9 million passengers in fiscal year 2021 (to 30 September), having previously projected 47.91 million. It predicts a total of 73.17 million passengers in fiscal year 2022; 128.85 million passengers in fiscal year 2023 and 146.4 million passengers in fiscal year 2024. In 2019, Thailand’s six major airports handled 141.8 million travellers, with this number falling by -48.8% in 2020 to 72.64 million.
The airport company said it had adopted best and worst-case scenarios. In the best case, borders to international travellers will open after October 2021, leading to recovery in confidence and passenger volumes. In this case, full recovery to 2019 levels may be possible by fiscal 2023.
Under the worst-case scenario, it said, Thailand will reopen its borders to international travellers after January 2022 – assuming “delays in vaccinations, mutations and manufacturing or transport and distribution problems”. In this case, recovery would take until fiscal 2024, it noted.
