Thai AirAsia says it’s on the way to a full recovery and expects to end the year having carried 10 million passengers. The airline says it’s currently experiencing strong demand from both domestic and international passengers and expects to return to pre-Covid levels of operation during 2023.
Thai Air Asia CEO Santisuk Klongchaiya says that in the coming year, the airline plans to introduce new routes to places like Pakistan and Nepal, and hopes to add more Indian cities to its network.
“We predict the tourism industry in 2023 will return to conditions before the Covid-19 pandemic in line with the Tourism Authority of Thailand’s evaluation that 18 to 30 million tourists will visit Thailand next year.”
However, the big question facing the aviation sector is when China will relax its Covid-19 travel restrictions and re-open its skies. Santisuk says many are hopeful that this could happen during the first quarter of 2023. He says this would be a welcome boon for Thailand’s tourism sector and Thai AirAsia is ready to restart Chinese operations.
“Thai AirAsia is ready to immediately serve flights to China with our large fleet of 53 aircraft. We expect to carry 20 million guests next year, double that of this year’s 10 million and a huge jump from 2.9 million in 2021.”
Meanwhile, Aeronautical Radio of Thailand Co Ltd (AeroThai). is upbeat about the outlook for the Thai aviation industry next year, They believe the rebound in international and domestic travel continues to accelerate.
In October, the average daily number of flights to and from Thailand reached 1,637, while the number of domestic flights reached an average of 1,806 a day, according to nationthailand.com
SOURCE: TTR Weekly
