Thai AirAsia lays off staff amid aviation woes

Thai AirAsia has announced mass layoffs and extended furloughs after struggling with the impact of the pandemic, despite the country's reopening on Nov 1. Tassapon Bijleveld, executive chairman of Asia Aviation (AAV), the largest shareholder of TAA, made the announcement to TAA's employees on Wednesday, indicating that the real situation in terms of the aviation outlook remains unstable, prompting the company to reduce its fleet size next year and consequently reduce its workforce to maintain financial stability over the long run. "Even though we've negotiated with suppliers and banks to help offload aircraft leasing costs, and we may get additional liquidity after restructuring this month, our balance sheet cannot be strong enough if those expenses still run. We have to permanently cut the fleet for at least two years or until international and domestic flights fully recover," Tassapon said at the internal meeting. TAA announced on Monday that its fleet size would be cut from 60 to 54 as revenue from international routes is still limited due to different reopening policies from country to country. Tassapon added that the airline had already bottomed out in the third quarter, and it estimated that the domestic market should fully recover by mid-2022, while international flights might gradually return to 20-30% of 2019 levels. The best-case scenario for international routes is that TAA resumes 50% of pre-pandemic scheduled flights by the end of next year.<br/>