Thai passengers charged extra because names too long to fit on boarding passes

[CharlesSwann]

I have never seen a perfectly-designed form. Full address to be squeezed on half a line... date of birth to be entered across a line-break... always some irrelvant and incomprehensible items...

All forms seem to be designed by idiots.

[stanleycoin]

3 minutes ago, PatOngo said:

Strange this! All the Thais I know are called Daeng, Lek, Noi, Meaw, Goong etc.............surely these fit on a boarding pass! Som, Noo............etc!

Some Thai names are long.

I know one guy called

Somchai-Workalotsomedays.  

 

[Tradewind777]

Will they let me board with my Alias Ramatool Upp@t@rt?

[Blue Muton]

Well my Mrs won't have that problem as she changed her name after we married, only six letters in Muton!

[Lee4Life]

It amazes me that in a country where "anything goes" in so many ways, people are so stuck on procedure and adhering to policies, especially where extra fees are involved. For example, I bought ceiling tile at a large chain-type building supply store. The workers loaded the wrong tile in my vehicle, and I didn't notice as it was all in plain white boxes. I got home and opened a box, saw the tile was wrong and loaded it all back up and returned to the store. I explained that my receipt was for the correct tile but the workers had accidentally loaded the wrong tile in my vehicle. Instead of just swapping it out for me, they insisted that I needed to go to the main office and have a new invoice printed.

         I went to the office, where they printed an invoice for the tile that they incorrectly loaded into my vehicle, then printed a return authorization saying I returned it, then printed another new invoice identical to the one I first received. To top it all off they charged me a fee for printing the invoices, when I protested, the office worker told me that if I didn't pay the fee she would have to pay out of her own pocket because it was company policy that somebody paid for the extra invoices being printed. 

Edited May 9, 2018 by Lee4Life

[Paul Catton]

The answer should be quite simple.

The passport you travel with has Surname and Given Names recorded.

In my case Catton then Paul respectively.

If however my surname was and then recorded on a passport as Cattonisadickthrowrocksathim and my given name/s Paulaproductofinbreeding, one would enter as many official consecutive letters as a form allows.

 

[PatOngo]

57 minutes ago, stanleycoin said:

Some Thai names are long.

I know one guy called

Somchai-Workalotsomedays.  

 

Is he related to Daeng Workalittlebitmostdays?

[jerry921]

Serves them right. If they weren't Thai it wouldn't have happened. 

 

Thai Airways is probably not using a reservation system that they developed themselves, post-deregulation most airlines subscribe to systems provided by 3rd party companies.

[MW72]

6 hours ago, Baerboxer said:

 

I know a family with two daughters - one called Ice and one called Cream! 

One of my sister in laws has twin boys called Nick and Name. Another sister in law has a boy called Bang and a girl called Boom. I was sure my girl was ripping the piss out of me when she first told me their names.

[Justfine]

2 hours ago, torrzent said:

So what if a name had 500 letters, or a million letters.  Are you saying all forms should accomodate these?

Someone should change their name to abcdefgh............

 

Use all 26.

[bluesofa]

6 hours ago, Baerboxer said:

 

I know a family with two daughters - one called Ice and one called Cream! 

My ex had an aunt with two sets of twins. First set were nicknamed Lin & Lan, second set were T-wit & T-wat. No word of a lie.

 

Edited May 9, 2018 by bluesofa

[observer90210]

One could understand overcharging the sweating overweight fatties for their seats...but for the locals and their Thai names ? That to from the national carrier ? Disgraceful....

[torrzent]

2 hours ago, Blue Muton said:

Well my Mrs won't have that problem as she changed her name after we married, only six letters in Muton!

I'm only seeing 5, is this something like a baker's half dozen?

[torrzent]

23 minutes ago, observer90210 said:

One could understand overcharging the sweating overweight fatties for their seats...but for the locals and their Thai names ? That to from the national carrier ? Disgraceful....

agree about extra charge for the obese ones.  Should also extra charge or refuse boarding to those who reek of cigarette smoke on their clothes or perfume/after shave

[torrzent]

2 hours ago, Lee4Life said:

It amazes me that in a country where "anything goes" in so many ways, people are so stuck on procedure and adhering to policies, especially where extra fees are involved. For example, I bought ceiling tile at a large chain-type building supply store. The workers loaded the wrong tile in my vehicle, and I didn't notice as it was all in plain white boxes. I got home and opened a box, saw the tile was wrong and loaded it all back up and returned to the store. I explained that my receipt was for the correct tile but the workers had accidentally loaded the wrong tile in my vehicle. Instead of just swapping it out for me, they insisted that I needed to go to the main office and have a new invoice printed.

         I went to the office, where they printed an invoice for the tile that they incorrectly loaded into my vehicle, then printed a return authorization saying I returned it, then printed another new invoice identical to the one I first received. To top it all off they charged me a fee for printing the invoices, when I protested, the office worker told me that if I didn't pay the fee she would have to pay out of her own pocket because it was company policy that somebody paid for the extra invoices being printed. 

Watch the movie Brazil for a laugh,  it's all about the paperwok and forms

 

 

[Blue Muton]

18 minutes ago, torrzent said:

I'm only seeing 5, is this something like a baker's half dozen?

Good spot, I must have included the exclamation mark as a character, it's often spoken that way by her when she thinks I've committed some kind of domestic misdeed.

[tso310]

1 hour ago, jerry921 said:

Serves them right. If they weren't Thai it wouldn't have happened. 

 

Thai Airways is probably not using a reservation system that they developed themselves, post-deregulation most airlines subscribe to systems provided by 3rd party companies.

Thai has been using Amadeus since 2014. Prior to that it was Sabre and before that most of their IT was from SAS.

[chainarong]

I've got a 14 letter surname in my crowd, awarded to one of the family, by the former King  for services to the community,( for those that don't know, basicly,  Instead of an MBE in Thai they change surnames )   before this ironically the family by deed poll changed to a simple 5 letter english surname...................................... 

Edited May 9, 2018 by chainarong

[torrzent]

16 minutes ago, tso310 said:

Thai has been using Amadeus since 2014. Prior to that it was Sabre and before that most of their IT was from SAS.

Interesting, but what does Mozart, swordfighting, and British special forces have to do with the discussion?

[DJ54]

Had similar happen at bank in China. Transferred USD to China Bank 

the money never arrived after a couple of weeks back and forth with

 bank they said I spelled my name wrong..... at that time I told them 

I’ve had the same name for 56 years I know how to spell it. 

 

Turns out the bank system had max amount of letters. So I didn’t realize when they opened my account they shortened my name.

 

 

[Caiman]

Some Check-in staff can be very unforgiving for the slightest discrepancy same as banks etc.

A Philippines Airlines check-in refused me boarding many years back because my debit card number was slightly different as the original expired before departure. I destroyed my expired card as we are all advised to do, It was obvious it was me who purchased but reasoning was futile! I had to buy another ticket.

[seminomadic]

This is a particularly strange case.

 

Obvious to say but relevant: Thai Chinese run a number of the SME's, corporations and government agencies/ministries very disproportionate to their population, as is true of overseas Chinese all over Southeast Asia. You would think that Thai Chinese to at least some extent comprise the upper echelon of Thai Airways... 

 

Since it's the Thai Chinese with these pretentiously long last names victimized by this policy, I would love to know exactly who made the decisions to do this, and how it got ok'd.... and how many syllables in their respective last names??

 

[GBW]

8 hours ago, bluesofa said:

Did they have a son called MyJeans?

 

No, another daughter called Pie, oh sorry Pai......

[Mac98]

Just think of all the hyphenated names in the West. Samantha Cleopatra Cloudberry-Tippitoes.

[luk AJ]

Some Check-in staff can be very unforgiving for the slightest discrepancy same as banks etc.
A Philippines Airlines check-in refused me boarding many years back because my debit card number was slightly different as the original expired before departure. I destroyed my expired card as we are all advised to do, It was obvious it was me who purchased but reasoning was futile! I had to buy another ticket.

I heard this before, but how does this work when the ticket is paid by company?


Sent from my iPhone using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

[Argus Tuft]

10 hours ago, torrzent said:

So what if a name had 500 letters, or a million letters.  Are you saying all forms should accomodate these?

oh, be realistic and have some common sense please

[samsensam]

14 hours ago, nkg said:

They were charged for changing the name on their tickets, a standard practice at many airlines.

 

How come this has never happened before? There are lots of Thais out there with huge names.

 

yup, and a quick common sense enquiry when the purchaser realised their name didnt fit would have prevented the issue arising.

 

common sense; such a wonderful thing and yet, unfortunately, not that common.

[thedemon]

As has already been stated several times, the AMADEUS reservation system used by THAI and many other legacy airlines is where the limitation lies.

 

Thai Chinese having about the longest surnames in the world (through no fault of their own) and being most likely to fly on THAI of all airlines are about the only connection to Thailand this story has.

 

Stupid journalism.

[evadgib]

Is it 'Ferang Price' if booking in English and paying in Pounds/Dollars/Euros?

[naboo]

If their name is that long, they can probably afford it.