$3-billion revenue loss likely for airports in Asia-Pacific

Hyderabad: The prolonged duration of the coronavirus (Covid-19) outbreak may cause a whopping revenue loss of $3 billion for airports in the Asia-Pacific region including India.

Airports Council International (ACI), urged regulators and governments in the Asia-Pacific region to implement well-defined adjustments and relief measures tailored to suit local-level contexts.

The Asia-Pacific region including India is suffering the highest impact, with passenger traffic volumes down by 24 per cent for the first quarter of the current year, compared to projected traffic levels without Covid-19, as per ACI World estimates.

Based on the ACI's world airport traffic forecasts for 2019-2040, it's predicted that $12.4 billion revenue for the first quarter in the Asia-Pacific region in the 'business as usual' scenario.

ACI-APAC said in a release that "the impact of Covid-19 is projected to have a revenue loss of $3 billion."

Within the Asia-Pacific region, mainland China, Hong Kong SAR and the Republic of Korea remain at the centre of the effect with sizeable losses in traffic volumes, it added.

Meanwhile, there is a sharp spike in the number of Covid-19 cases in several countries in the Middle East, expecting to significantly impact traffic downwards by a negative 4.2 per cent as travellers and airlines adjust their plans and seat offers in the coming days and weeks, it added.

Against this gloomy background of sharp declines in traffic and passenger throughput, airports' aeronautical revenues and non-aeronautical revenues are rendering similar declines, the ACI-APAC said in the release.

ACI is a grouping of airports. It serves 668 members, operating 1,979 airports in 176 countries.

Current slot allocation rules require airlines to use at least 80 per cent of their allocated slots under normal operations at an airport in order to keep them.

The proposal for a global suspension of 80/20 usage recently made by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) would give airlines the freedom to cancel flights to/from congested airports not necessarily linked to the COVID-19 outbreak, jeopardising the ability for countries to stay connected with the world, which in turn will have knock-on effects on their economies.