Thai AirAsia cuts 2014 forecast

BANGKOK : Thai AirAsia has cut its 2014 passenger estimate from 13.3 million to 12.6 million trips claiming six months of political chaos has dampened travel growth in Thailand.
The airline commercial operations director, Santisuk Klongchaiya, said Thai AirAsia Co has lowered its passenger projection because the political crisis impacted on inbound travel to the kingdom.
Thai AirAsia gains considerable traffic from international tourists using AirAsia Group flights from around the region to Bangkok who then connect with domestic services.
“The airline had also lowered its average load factor estimate for 2014, initially set at 83% to 80%.”
The declines were caused when the Thai military seized power, 22 May, from a caretaker government led by Yingluck Shinawatra. Inbound tourism was already sluggish due to more than six months of protests that ran from late October, 2013, right up until the military coup. At the height of the chaos in the Thai capital, 70 countries warned their citizens to avoid travelling to Thailand.
Passenger traffic will drop from the original projection of 30% to 15% to 20% this year for the same reason.
He added that Thai AirAsia would delay the delivery of three aircraft set for this year. The airline so far has received four planes since January and will get one more in September.
It has also consolidated some services to domestic destination from now until late October. For example it cut a mid morning flight on the Bangkok-Chiang Rai route transferring passengers who had booked that flight to an earlier one departing from Chiang Rai at 0910.
Last year, the airline achieved a load factor of 83%, up 1 percentage point after serving over 10.5 million people, or 26% increasing from 2012.

Sourced: ttrweekly