rummage

All companies have faced extreme difficulties as a result of the Covid 19 crisis, perhaps none more so than airline operators. As with any business sector, they have all been busy developing their lockdown exit strategy. Most businesses, at least the enlightened ones, will be centering their strategy on maintaining the loyalty of their customer/client base. No customer or clients, no business, a very simply mantra.

Following my own recent experience, I have collated data on the airlines that operate domestically in Thailand. For the most part, they are all following a similar pattern as to their policies, except one. I have put the data I collected into a simple table below. Now ask the question, “Which airline is most likely to fail post-Corona”?

* Thai Smile is a wholly owned subsidiary of Thai Airways.

My own experience: Just this week I had to contact Nok Air to reschedule a booking due to the Corona crisis. I was in no angry about this, it is a situation that we just have work round. Myself, just as any other business, has had reshape my thinking and the way I am conducting business in a way in which helps my clients the most, without my clients I have no business. So, imagine how flabbergasted I was when I was told by the Nok Air customer services operator that I would have to pay an and extra charge for my rescheduled flight!

After much, firmly worded, complaining on my part, the operators “Manager” said they would waver the additional charge. I am not grateful for their “Generous concession”, quite simply it should never have been an issue. I also wonder how many passengers have already just shrugged their shoulders and swallowed the additional charge.

All businesses need to remember, preserving your customer/client base is vital in any post-Corona exit plan.

Nok Air, I suggest you have a rapid rethink on your policies, re: the re-booking of cancelled flights due the Corona crisis.

I have been working at the same government school in Bangkok for many years. During that time I have seen school directors come and go, some good, some not so good. At the start of this academic year, we were presented with our new teaching schedules for the 1st semester. The first thing that was apparent was that the schedules for the farang teachers had each of us teaching 25 periods a week, more than we had ever done before. Secondly, the teaching day had increased to 11 periods, meaning the day finished at 5:20pm. Notice of these changes only became apparent the day before the start of the semester, and then it only got out as leaked information. After very firm complaints, the school had to remove period 11 from the farang schedules because our contracts stated that our working day finished at 4:30pm.

My question is: Is this situation isolated to my school, or have any other schools in Bangkok changed their schedules to 11 periods a day, and if so, was it done with or without consultation?