A bleak economic winter is forecast for the New Year holiday as airlines are seeing declining bookings and the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) estimates only 2.75 million domestic trips for the upcoming period.
Nuntaporn Komonsittivate, head of commercial operations at Thai Lion Air (TLA), said tourism demand softened significantly because of a recent surge in new Covid-19 cases locally, which began earlier this month. The spread began among Thais who brought the virus over from Myanmar to Chiang Rai, followed by a big cluster of infections that emerged over recent days in Samut Sakhon.
Prior to the new wave of infections, TLA forecast December to be its best month in a crisis-plagued year as local confidence had been improving month by month. The average load factor for TLA in November hit 75%, prompting the airline to…
