THAILAND. Airports of Thailand (AOT) today released a programme of additional assistance measures for airport concessionaires and airlines hit by the devastating impact on travel of the COVID-19 crisis.
In a letter to The Stock Exchange of Thailand, AOT revealed the assistance measures for concessionaires and airlines at its six airports.
These included the following:
- Where concessionaires and airlines submit a letter to temporarily suspend their operations or that AOT’s airports are temporarily closed, AOT will exempt the collection of office and state property rents, terminal and building service charges and fixed monthly concession charges for 9 months, from 1 April to 31 December 2020 or until the date the concessionaires and airlines inform their resumption of operations, whichever comes first.
- In case of concessionaires and airlines who still operate at airports under AOT’s supervision, AOT will offfer a 50% reduction in office and state property rents for all tenants for 9 months, from 1 April to 31 December 2020
- AOT will collect terminal and building service charges at the rate of 15% of office and state property rents which have been reduced by 50%
- AOT will extend a six-month credit term of payment for concession charges for each of the 6 monthly instalments (February – July 2020) and to each of the 11 monthly instalments (August – December 2020), only if requested by the concessionaires and airlines
It will also adjust the rates of fixed concession charges and minimum guarantees for commercial activities operated at airports under AOT’s supervision after completion of the assistance measures for the concessionaires.
For established concessionaires (operating pre-February 19), the rates of fixed concession charges and/or minimum guarantees of the year before adopting the assistance measures for concessionaires and airlines (year 2019) shall apply to determine the rates of fixed concession charges and/or minimum guarantees.
In collecting concession charges from the concessionaires for the following years from the first term of agreement after completion of assistance measures for concessionaires and airlines, AOT management will consider a comparison between the number of passengers as of any given year and that of the year before the COVID-19 crisis (year 2019). If fewer passenger numbers are found, the rates of fixed concession charges and/or minimum guarantees of the year before the COVID-19 crisis (year 2019) of each airport shall be applied as collection rates.
However, once the passenger numbers as of any given year are higher than those of the year before the COVID-19 crisis (year 2019), passenger growth rates as of such year shall henceforth be applied as the calculation base for MAG.
AOT said: “Initial forecasts suggest that the assistance measures, approved by the AOT Board of Directors, will cause a decrease in AOT’s revenue in fiscal year 2020 of around 17% [compared to] the revenue of fiscal year 2019.”
A wide range of airline relief measures were also announced. Click here for full details of the package.
