Airlines see holiday bookings drop

[Nicke]

Airlines see holiday bookings drop

BANGKOK : Cancellation numbers are swelling on flights from Europe and Asia as tourists scramble to avoid tsunami-devastated southern Thailand.

With Sunday's catastrophic Asian earthquake and the resulting devastation still fresh in their minds, several thousand international travelers are scrapping their trips to southern Thailand during the traditional peak season.

Between Christmas and New Year thousands of mainly Western tourists normally descend daily on the resort island pearl of Phuket, which was slammed along with several other popular beach resorts by the deadly waves.

"Incoming passengers at Phuket have dropped up to 40 percent since the tsunami lashed us," Chaisak Angkasuwan, the director general of Thailand's department of aviation, told AFP.

Thailand's prime resort destination saw more than 2.75 million foreign visitors last year.

Orient Thai Airlines, which operates 12 direct flights a week to Phuket from Hong Kong and South Korea, is being hit hard, the company's founder and president acknowledged.

"All passengers from overseas in Hong Kong and South Korea have totally cancelled for the next month," said Udom Tantiprasongchai.

"We are the airline that flies most passengers into Phuket and now even on our low-cost airline, One-Two-Go, flights to Phuket have reported lower domestic passengers."

The losses will top 100 million baht (2.6 million dollars) over one month, Udom said.

Flagship carrier Thai Airways International reportedly expects half of its inbound passengers to cancel flights this holiday week, prompting losses of 270 million baht (6.9 million dollars).

"The cancellations are expected to come mainly from tourists in Japan," president Kanok Abhiradee was quoted as saying in The Nation. The newspaper said similar losses from Europe were expected.

Thai Airways executives could not be reached for comment.

Japan Airlines, which flies some 1,500 people per day from Japan to Thailand, said it expects 20 percent of bookings to be scrapped.

"Half of our passengers continue on to Phuket but some of them are changing their plans," said regional manager Iwasaki Seiichi.

Wolfgang Schmidt, the general manager in Bangkok for Lufthansa, said: "We have seen some cancellations, of course, and some charter flights have been cancelled."

Not all incoming markets have been severely affected.

United Airlines daily jumbo jet flights into Bangkok from the United States are still virtually full during the holiday season, said the carrier's general manager in Thailand, Warren Gerig.

He acknowledged several travelers were likely trading in their beach holidays on Phuket, Krabi or Phang Nga -- the provinces worst-hit by the disaster -- for vacations in northern Thailand's mountains or on beach resorts on the eastern coast, such as Koh Samui or Hua Hin.

These were unaffected by the tsunamis.

Thailand reeled in 10 million foreign tourists last year, generating six percent of the nation's GDP. It aims to double arrivals to 20 million by 2008.

- AFP 2004-12-30