• Tug of war between strong pent-up demand and travel restrictions
• Outlook positive. Targeting 12.3 million guests flown in 2022 with 78% Load Factor
• Strategic drive to boost non-airline revenue streams from freight and super app

BANGKOK, 24 February, 2022 – Asia Aviation Public Company Limited. (“AAV”), a Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) listed company and major shareholder in Thai AirAsia Company Limited (“TAA”), announces its operational results for the fourth quarter of 2021 (“4Q/2021”). AAV’s Total revenue of Baht 2,152 million and a net loss of Baht 993 million for the quarter delivered some positive signals, but slower than expected due to increasing oil prices, COVID-19 screening requirements, and a delay in the reopening of borders.

For the year ended 2021 (“FY2021”), the company posted total revenue of Baht 4,508 million and a net loss of Baht 6,647 million, due to restrictions caused by multiple COVID-19 waves. The government’s adjustment on Covid-19 containment measures to not permit all domestic passenger flights in and out of the red zone, which led to all domestic flights being temporarily suspended in July and August 2021. Positively, TAA resumed international flights to the Maldives and Cambodia in 4Q/2021 on the back of the government’s easing of travel restrictions along with the policy of opening the country through the Test & Go scheme. However, the Test & Go scheme was temporarily suspended in late 2021 after the increasing spread of the new Omicron variant, adversely affecting TAA’s plan to resume its international flights. Overall for the full year, the company carried 2.93 million passengers with a load factor of 68 percent.Thai AirAsia continuously monitors its punctuality, reflected in the strong full-year on-time-performance result of 97 percent, which increased from 96 percent compared to the previous year. This key performance metric is better than the company's strategic target, following our sustainability development framework goal of 90 percent.

Recently, AAV and its subsidiary have commenced its restructuring plan by increasing its capital to Baht 14 billion and also completed the sale and leaseback transactions of seven aircraft with net proceeds of Baht 1.7 billion, to increase working capital and liquidity, leading the company to grow forward sustainably.

Santisuk Klongchaiya, Chief Executive Officer of Asia Aviation Plc. and Thai AirAsia Co. Ltd. (TAA), remarked that “2021 was a difficult year due to the ongoing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, which was especially severe throughout the third quarter and necessitated a temporary suspension of all domestic flights in support of government containment policies. The complete suspension of all flights impacted AAV’s liquidity and cash flow and resulted in a major shareholder restructuring. The company was nonetheless successful in raising funds and restructuring operations during the end of 2021 and stands ready to compete and quickly recover.”

“We spent the entire year adapting and seeking out new opportunities, to build a sustainable and viable platform for the future. We focused on expanding our operations into cargo services and chartered flights, where these segments contributed 3% of our total revenue in 2021. We also rebranded to introduce airasia Super App as a broad based digital travel and lifestyle business to extend our customer base and to build new revenue streams in addition to our flight operations” Mr. Santisuk said.

The year 2022 is to be a year of recovery and the company plans to add both additional flight routes and frequencies as consumer and tourism appetite grows. Expecting domestic services to return to 100 percent within the year, the company has poised itself to continually reintroduce international routes based on the government’s national reopening plan. In addition, TAA has strategically positioned its base at Suvarnabhumi Airport to strengthen its domestic routes and air cargo routes as part of its international route expansion plan to ensure that TAA has a competitive advantage in both passenger and freight services. New technologies are to be developed to enhance safety procedures and reduce physical contact with facial recognition to be employed in the near future.

For 2022, the company aims to carry 12.3 million passengers and improve its load factor to 78 percent. Optimising the fleet and network strategy will remain a key focus. As such, TAA has no plans to acquire additional aircraft in the near term while plans are in place to return aircraft that will expire under lease agreements, and rotate aircraft within AirAsia Aviation Group, resulting in a target fleet size of 53 aircraft at the end of the year.