Thailand: Carriers under the cosh

Thai AirAsia views the forced lockdown as jeopardising its financial status as the aviation industry has been struggling without government support for over a year as it questioned the ability of the government to collect tax when large businesses have been left to die. Tassapon Bijleveld, executive chairman of Asia Aviation (AAV), the largest shareholder of Thai AirAsia (TAA), said liquidity is at a critical stage and it has had to seek emergency borrowing to help pay payroll this month. The company is preparing a business restructuring that will see new investors injecting a 3.5b-baht loan but the process has been delayed as further discussions with related authorities are needed. The airline was the first carrier to halt all domestic routes on July 12, following the partial lockdown announcement. "We stopped all flights last week as there was little demand with only 30-50 passengers per flight in July," Tassapon said. "The government never responded to our demands for soft loans which have been requested since the first lockdown last year. The ban of domestic flights now has worsened the situation," he said "We hardly see a way out from this circumstance." He said seven airlines in The Airlines Association of Thailand (AAT) will gather and call on the government this week to urgently address the impact on the aviation industry as they have suffered the most from the latest lockdown announcement. According to AAT, seven airlines in Thailand have a total workforce of more than 15,000.<br/>