TEHRAN, Iran, May 18
Trend:
Income of Iran's airports have significantly declined following the drop of air travels and closure of services and airline companies due to coronavirus spread, said Director General of Mehrabad Airports.
"There have been major changes during the crisis including airports' high budget deficits to provide daily costs and development plans that require proper solutions and creating trust over sanitation for air travels," said Ebrahim Moradi, Trend reports citing Fars News Agency.
"All the airports in the country are trying to implement necessary measures, but this requires cooperation with airlines and organizations to address the problem that have effected many jobs," he added.
"The airports revenues in the Middle East have dropped more than 53 percent comparing to last year, while Mehrabad International Airport had zero revenue in second month of the current Iranian year [began March 20, 2020]," Moradi said.
"In the current situation, there is a need for new economic, marketing and budget management solutions in order to continue the operations airports and create trust to increase travel's demand," he said.
"There are constant requests from the airport income sources to exempt debts; in this situation, banks can provide advances to these units to facilitate the airports' return to normal economic cycle," Moradi added.
"There is a hope that airline companies would pay their debts to the airports with support from the government financial packages," he noted.
"The ICAO, IATA and ACT studies indicated the recovery duration for airports and return to pre-coronavirus levels would take from 24 to 28 months," he said.