Thai narrows operating loss for first nine months of 2021

Thai Airways International posted an operating loss of Bt21.5b ($658m) for the first nine months of 2021, an improvement on its operating loss of Bt34b for the first nine months of 2020. Operating revenues at Thai and its units fell 66.1% year on year to Bt15b, with passenger and excess baggage revenue diving 92.2% to Bt2.5b, according to the carrier’s nine-month result statement for the period to 30 September. It did not break out a quarterly figure for the July-September period. The only operating metric that saw an improvement was freight and mail revenue, which rose 10.9% to Bt6.4b. The improvement in Thai’s operating performance stemmed from its halving of total operating expenses to Bt36.5b. Despite the poor operating performance, the airline posted a net profit of Bt51b due mostly to a series of one-off items, including asset sales and a Bt60.7b gain from debt restructuring. Thai carried 820,000 passengers in the first nine months of 2021, down 83.8% from a year earlier. ASKs fell 70.7%, and RPKs fell 93.9%. Load factors fell 53.1 percentage points to 13.9%. On the cargo front, Thai’s freight yield shot up 81.2%, with freight load factors rising 43.5 percentage points to 99.7%. Still, overall cargo carried declined 44.7% to 83,000t, as the airline’s overall freight capacity declined 65.2%. Cash burn remains a challenge. In the first nine months of 2021, Thai had a negative operating cash outflow of Bt7.9b, even worse than Bt7.2b a year earlier.<br/>