KhaoYai

The only ones I know about are my friends in Pak Chong. Teacher in his first year at a government primary school around 18,000 - rises yearly for 5 years. Office worker (teacher's wife) 15,000. General factory workers 9-12,000. There is one local employer (foreign firm) that pays well above average at all levels but competition for jobs there is fierce and their pay structure is not typical for the area.

I travel to Thailand regularly and can only do so because I seek out the best flight prices on my chosen carrier - Etihad. I can usually be flexible with my dates. I've just returned to the UK from Thailand this week and that flight cost me a little more than usual for the time of year but after several news reports I was expecting that. However, for reasons I won't go into, I have to return unexpectedly in just 3 weeks time and I can't believe the price I've just had to pay. OK so July/August are always the most expensive summer months to travel to Thailand from the UK and I usually try to avoid them but on the few occasions where I have travelled at that time, its usually cost me around £700. I use a flight comparison site and spent most of yesterday looking at hunderds of different options - I couldn't believe the prices I was getting. The flight I ended up with was available through various agents with prices from £1610 of to around £1700. I'd never heard of some of the agents so checked them out on Trustpilot to try and avoid nightmares - I also won't deal with agents that will not give out their phone numbers. I ended up paying £1677 (economy) using an agent I know for flight on Qatar (an airline I said I'd never use again but Etihad were £2300!!!). I just couldn't believe that price - even with it being in the UK school holidays and allowing for fuel price increases. £1677 - can you imagine paying that if you have a wife and three kids? There were flights available using multiple airlines for around £1200 but the total travel times were hideous (up to 53 hours). I also don't fancy flights using multiple airlines - too much to go wrong. What was also surprising was that flights were disappearing almost as fast as I could find them. I spoke to one agent who confirmed that they are exceptionally busy at the moment - it seems that people haven't travelled for a couple of years and are therefore prepared to pay these prices. The same agent told me that as well as the increased fuel costs, airlines are trying to recoup some of the money the lost when the pandemic brought most travel to a halt. I suppose that's understandable. I can only hope that once people have spent the money they've saved over the last couple of years and fuel prices hopefully drop, airlines will once again return to having to attract customers through competitive pricing. Next year maybe?