Airports of Thailand Public Company Limited (SET: AOT) has informed the Stock Exchange of Thailand that in the company’s Board of Directors Meeting on Thursday, 21 November 2024, the board resolved to approve AOT’s reclamation of commercial areas of approximately 1,257.560 square meters or 4.97 percent of total commercial areas of King Power Suvarnabhumi Company Limited (KPS) at Suvarnabhumi Airport (BKK) (from 25,307.260 square meters in total) for the construction of BKK’s East Expansion Terminal, effective from 30 July 2021 onwards.
Such reclamation of commercial areas results in AOT’s payback of minimum guarantee of the Contract Year 2 (1 April 2023 – 31 March 2024) following the decreasing number of commercial areas since 30 July 2024, accounting for approximately Baht 193.08 million, to KPS.
In this regard, KPS agreed not to call for any damages, interest or expense incurred from AOT’s payback. The reclamation of commercial areas from KPS will also cause a decrease of approximately Baht 591,000 per month in office and state property rent inside BKK and a decrease of approximately Baht 23.46 million per month in minimum guarantee inside BKK for the Contract Year 3 (1 April 2024 – 31 March 2025), which have been already recognised by AOT in the 2024 Financial Statements.
AOT expects that upon the completion of the East Expansion Terminal construction, AOT will record an increase in revenue from passenger service and commercial concession which can further make up for such revenue drop.
The construction areas of the eastern terminal are located around Food Stop (previously as City Garden) on the 2nd floor, certain of which are operated by KPS that has been granted a concession contract, from 28 September 2020 – 31 March 2033, to operate commercial areas for retail shops or services.
For such reason, AOT needs to reclaim certain commercial areas from KPS whereby AOT already submitted a notification letter and KPS returned those areas to AOT from 30 July 2021.
Essentially, KPS has requested AOT to allocate the areas inside Domestic Passenger Terminal which is of the same size as those of Food Stop where KPS operates food and beverage business for passengers and service users.
However, AOT is unable to allocate the areas of the same size as the reclaimed areas in replacement for KPS since no large-sized areas are currently left.
