Third-wave pulls air travel down by more than 50%: CAAT
The first quarter of this year has seen just 6.66 million air passengers, marking a 79.1 per cent drop from 25.27 million in the same period last year, the Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand (CAAT) reported on Wednesday.
Of the 6.66 million, 6.47 million were domestic passengers, dropping 60.1 per cent year on year, while some 195,000 were foreigners, marking a drop of 98.8 per cent year on year.
CAAT put this significant decline in air travel down to the second wave of Covid-19 infections that was sparked in Samut Sakhon in December, and the third wave that broke out in Bangkok in late March and spread to nearly all provinces.
Meanwhile, the first quarter has only seen 78,600 flights take off, or 66.3 per cent fewer than 154,000 flights in the first quarter of last year. Of these 62,600 flights were domestic and the rest international, down 53 per cent and 84 per cent year on year respectively.
The first quarter also saw a 16-per-cent drop in air cargo, logging in at just 283,000 tonnes. Some 277,000 tonnes was international and the remainder domestic, marking a drop of 13.8 per cent and 59.7 per cent year on year respectively.
Airports recording the highest number of passengers in the first quarter were Don Mueang at 1.8 million passengers, followed by Suvarnabhumi (1.5 million), Chiang Mai (560,000), Phuket (460,000) and Hat Yai (420,000). Airports with the highest number of flights during the period were Suvarnabhumi (29,000), followed by Don Mueang (17,000), Chiang Mai (5,200), Phuket (4,400) and Hat Yai (3,500).
