Airports in the Middle Eastern region are set to lose around $8 billion in revenue this year due to the coronavirus pandemic, the media reported.
The airports will also lose around 250 million in passenger traffic, according to the Airports Council International (ACI)’s latest report.
Prior to the pandemic, passenger traffic was projected to reach 420 million in 2020 in the Middle Eastern airports; however, passenger traffic is projected to reach just 170 million this year.
The report said that regional airports will lose around 60 percent of its revenue this year, against the previous estimate of $13.2 billion.
As the industry remains on the ground for much longer than anticipated in the first months of the crisis, coupled with ongoing quarantine measures, current projections on international market segments signal that passenger volumes will likely not return to 2019 levels until 2024. Markets that have significant domestic traffic, on the other hand, are expected to recover in 2023 back to pre-Covid-19 levels," the ACI said its latest analysis.
The ACI report further revealed that when it comes to global passenger traffic, it will fall by 60 percent from 9.4 billion to 3.8 billion.
Many experts claims that passenger traffic will not reach pre-Covid-19 levels until 2023. “Compared to the business-as-usual forecast of pre-Covid-19 for 2020, the loss in global passenger traffic for Q3 is expected to be close to 70 percent, and that of Q4 approximately 50 percent. This brings the full 2020 year at a 60 percent loss in global passenger traffic” ACI added.