Airlines hope to renew demand with crypto bet

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Cabin crew of regional airline Thai Smile wear face masks when walking around Suvarnabhumi Airport.

Local airlines are following the digital currency trend in hopes of stimulating demand next year.

Puttipong Prasarttong-Osoth, chairman of Bangkok Airways, said the airline previously planned to accept crypto transactions from January 1, 2022 by partnering with Bitkub Capital Group Holdings to improve competitiveness through ticket sales.

However, the back-end system needs to be stabilized to support such transactions and Bangkok Airways has yet to choose the type of cryptocurrency, which means the launch date has been postponed until later in January. did he declare.

The airline has a load factor of 40% for the year-end period, with more than 60% to popular destinations in the North.

The Bangkok-Phnom Penh route, which opened on December 1, has registered a 50% load factor so far in December.

“Passenger numbers have started to rebound, but the overall frequency of flights has only increased by 30%. Every airline needs to expand its cost-cutting strategies and manage flights with limited demand,” Mr. Puttipong, who is also president of the Airlines Association. from Thailand.

He said the number of international passengers remained low after the country reopened on November 1.

Santisuk Klongchaiya, Managing Director of Thai AirAsia (TAA), said the airline needs to further study cryptocurrencies before offering this payment option, as this type of asset is still new.

He said the airline’s average load factor since reopening has reached 80-85%, but it only operates half of its total fleet.

Mr Santisuk said the fleet would be reduced by seven aircraft in January, resulting in a 10% reduction of 5,000 workers to accommodate the remaining 53 aircraft. If the TAA can make full use of national roads and reclaim 60 to 70 percent of international roads by next year, it will rehire workers on leave by mid-2022, he said.

Mr Santisuk said the airline’s takeover depends on the Chinese market, as TAA once served 13 cities there.

TAA recently announced its third international flight between Don Mueang Airport and Singapore as part of the non-quarantine “Vaccinated Travel Lanes”, with three flights per week starting December 29.

Nuntaporn Komonsittivate, head of business operations at Thai Lion Air (TLA), said the airline plans to operate flights to Singapore early next year as well as flights to China, its largest international market, from the second half of 2022. The load factor of TLA this month is expected to reach 78-80%.

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