The company expects that air travel could see a “reverse L-shaped recovery” as the vaccine rollout speeds up in South Korea.
Incheon International Airport Corp has stated that in their most ideal scenario, their annual number of passengers could reach around 16.5 million, which represents a decrease of 76.5 per cent from 2019. Overall recovery is moving much slower, and therefore the number of passengers could be as low as 5 million, or a 92.8 per cent drop from 2019.
Kim Kyung-Wook, the new President of IIAC spoke during his first media briefing since appointment, stating: “We rely on data from various research institutes for financial forecasting. But from the strategic point of view as an operator of the airport, we expect the L-shaped recession to continue before the reverse L-shaped recovery. And this is the prediction model we need to be prepared for.”
According to Kim Kyung-Wook, once that coronavirus crisis begins to improve drastically, air travel will recover to pre-pandemic levels within three months. Part of the strategy for recovery includes keeping duty-free stores open which has seen the airport delay rent payments of $345.6M.
