Thaworn to meet top THAI execs to discuss airline's future

[webfact]

Thaworn to meet top THAI execs to discuss airline's future

By THE NATION

 

Thaworn

 

Deputy Transport Minister Thaworn Senniam will convene a meeting with Thai Airways International (THAI) on October 10 to look for ways to clear the national carrier’s accumulated losses.

 

The minister, who will be meeting the airline’s chairman Ekniti Nitithanprapas and some top executives, said they will discuss the THAI’s existing rehabilitation plan, which he doesn’t believe will help the carrier make a turnaround. 

 

Thaworn said this rehabilitation plan has been implemented for a while now, but there is still no sign of the losses easing. 

 

In fact, he said, he is worried THAI will experience a loss of Bt10 billion this year. 

 

Hence, he believes THAI will first have to revise the rehab plan and come up with a revised version within three months. 

 

If the airline insists on using the existing plan, related persons will have to be responsible if something goes wrong with THAI in the future, he said. 

 

Separately, Thaworn said the budget carrier Thai AirAsia is seeking government support in many areas, including getting airports to adopt a facial-recognition system for check in and the expansion of runways at the Mae Sot and Betong airports. 

 

Thaworn said he has already set up a public-private panel to study the possibility of introducing a facial-recognition based check-in system and expects a report on this by the end of the month. The time period for the study will be extended by 15 days if it’s not ready and the system can be tested at one airport within this year.

 

Source: https://www.nationthailand.com/business/30377047

 

-- © Copyright The Nation Thailand 2019-10-04

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[PatOngo]

This is one terminally sick puppy that needs to be euthanised!

[yellowboat]

They are like children with ADD and not a modicum of intelligence.  How are facial scans going to help make the airline profitable ?

[Fex Bluse]

Until they engage competent foreigners (Asian or Western), they will continue to fail. 

 

And their national pride will have its FACE shattered for all the world to see. 

 

Looking forward to them being forced to admit they can't succeed without outside help. 

[steven100]

4 hours ago, webfact said:

have to revise the rehab plan and come up with a revised version

so let's have a revised rehab plan to revise the previous rehab revised plan   ????

[steven100]

3 minutes ago, Fex Bluse said:

Until they engage competent foreigners (Asian or Western), they will continue to fail. 

 

And their national pride will have its FACE shattered for all the world to see. 

 

Looking forward to them being forced to admit they can't succeed without outside help. 

looking forward to them going into voluntary liquidation because they are too stupid to cut costs years ago.

The writing has been on the wall for several years now and I'd love to see them all lose face and their jobs.

[wreckingcountry]

A “bottomless pit “. Incompetence bailed out and the gov unwilling to put someone in to sort out the mess! Basically the usual Thai way !


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[JoePai]

1 hour ago, yellowboat said:

They are like children with ADD and not a modicum of intelligence.  How are facial scans going to help make the airline profitable ?

Read it agin - Air Asia is profitable, they are trying to be more efficient

[harada]

Next stop the Mojave Desert.

[Burma Bill]

This meeting should not be too long. Just sack the entire board and replace with a modern, business orientated and efficient one - from abroad if necessary and forget all this "saving face" rubbish. 

[wreckingcountry]

This meeting should not be too long. Just sack the entire board and replace with a modern, business orientated and efficient one - from abroad if necessary and forget all this "saving face" rubbish. 

In your dreams. ! This is Thailand


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[Darkside Gray]

Thai airways is not set up to make a profit, it is there to give jobs to the boys retiring from the RTAF and to allow Hi So to travel at no cost in !st class with there families and hangers on free of charge, it will not change with this government or any in the future.

[BobbyL]

I wonder if Thaworn has got any experience in the restructuring or refinancing of major companies. 

[natway09]

The only way is to get outside help (Impossible as they might loose face)

There is an Irishman who has saved 5 airlines already & they need to get him on board (excuse the pun)

[NanLaew]

2 hours ago, yellowboat said:

They are like children with ADD and not a modicum of intelligence.  How are facial scans going to help make the airline profitable ?

The bit about facial recognition bit is a suggestion from AirAsia and has nothing to do with the THAI profitability concerns.

 

7 hours ago, webfact said:

... Hence, he believes THAI will first have to revise the rehab plan and come up with a revised version within three months. 

If the airline insists on using the existing plan, related persons will have to be responsible if something goes wrong with THAI in the future, he said. 

 

Separately, Thaworn said the budget carrier Thai AirAsia is seeking government support in many areas, including getting airports to adopt a facial-recognition system for check in and the expansion of runways at the Mae Sot and Betong airports. ...

Stop speed reading (and hoping for THAI failure).

[NanLaew]

2 hours ago, steven100 said:

looking forward to them going into voluntary liquidation because they are too stupid to cut costs years ago.

The writing has been on the wall for several years now and I'd love to see them all lose face and their jobs.

Oh look mum! Yet another, predictable farang champion for Thai failure squawking like the ineffectual, insignificant farang squatter that he is.

[steven100]

18 minutes ago, NanLaew said:

Oh look mum! Yet another, predictable farang champion for Thai failure squawking like the ineffectual, insignificant farang squatter that he is.

seen your so effectual, significant and unsquattered …..   let's see what happens shall we.

[Cadbury]

2 hours ago, steven100 said:

so let's have a revised rehab plan to revise the previous rehab revised plan   ????

The answer to the problem is simple. Just add Thai Airways to the long list that Khun Prayut Chan-o-cha  has personally put himself in charge of. 

He can order that a committee be formed and then instruct that committee to fix the problem. He can then walk away in the full knowledge he has triumphed again. Just like he did with the Bangkok traffic issue.

[RJRS1301]

3 hours ago, yellowboat said:

They are like children with ADD and not a modicum of intelligence.  How are facial scans going to help make the airline profitable ?

They get rid of checkin staff??

 

[steven100]

1 minute ago, Cadbury said:

Just add Thai Airways to the long list that Khun Prayut Chan-o-cha  has personally put himself in charge of. 

nonsense ….he was never in charge of Thai Airways. 

[Chazar]

7 hours ago, PatOngo said:

This is one terminally sick puppy that needs to be euthanised!

Shot down or kamikazi'd would be better

[yellowboat]

2 hours ago, JoePai said:

Read it agin - Air Asia is profitable, they are trying to be more efficient

Air Asia is profitable as they operate buses with wings, with NO freebies.  Getting on a Chinese carrier, I merely flash my passport.  Then, while in China, I punch in my passport number at a kiosk, and in a blink of an eye, a ticket is spat out.  My face does not get scanned once.  If their focus is on facial recognition, they should just lay everyone off now and sell off the planes they actually own.   You make money by flying to places people want to go and charging what people will pay. 

[Cadbury]

8 hours ago, webfact said:

Deputy Transport Minister Thaworn Senniam will convene a meeting with Thai Airways International (THAI) on October 10 to look for ways to clear the national carrier’s accumulated losses.

While Thaworn is about it he might just as well convene a meeting with the management of SRT to find ways of reducing their horrendous debt. Unfortunately he has incompetence working against him.

These two business entities are like financial nooses around the neck of the government and the taxpayers. 

[Sydebolle]

Going through the CVs of both the minister and the chairman I noticed, that neither of them has any clue of aviation. Most likely intelligent men, both politically or governmentally "infused" possibly not the best candidates for the job.

Privatize Thai Airways and you rid the state's budget of billions of tax payers expenses and it will be evident, that Thai Airways can make a positive difference in aviation, domestically as well as intercontinentally, provided you let real airline  professionals run the show. Private investors will absolutely guarantee, that the best of the lot will run the show. Latter will streamline fleet, operations, network and tidy up the patronizing staff cancer being the biggest problem of the country's carrier.

[DrTuner]

Give it mercy, put it out of it's misery, headshot. Sell whatever remains to AirAsia, one of the few properly managed airlines.

[Cadbury]

1 hour ago, steven100 said:

nonsense ….he was never in charge of Thai Airways. 

That's right steven100, you didn't read my post properly. I am suggesting he put himself charge; he is in charge of just about everything else. He could then add Thai Airways to the endless list of unfulfilled promises

As it is I doubt even the supremo himself could stuff it up anymore than it is now.

[wreckingcountry]

Oh look mum! Yet another, predictable farang champion for Thai failure squawking like the ineffectual, insignificant farang squatter that he is.

Wow some Thai loser let loose out of a cage !


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[GinBoy2]

1 hour ago, Sydebolle said:

Going through the CVs of both the minister and the chairman I noticed, that neither of them has any clue of aviation. Most likely intelligent men, both politically or governmentally "infused" possibly not the best candidates for the job.

Privatize Thai Airways and you rid the state's budget of billions of tax payers expenses and it will be evident, that Thai Airways can make a positive difference in aviation, domestically as well as intercontinentally, provided you let real airline  professionals run the show. Private investors will absolutely guarantee, that the best of the lot will run the show. Latter will streamline fleet, operations, network and tidy up the patronizing staff cancer being the biggest problem of the country's carrier.

It's easy to say 'privatize it', but the debt, and remember it's, at least so long as they don't buy yet more aircraft, the 2nd most indebted airline in the world, makes it basically insolvent and no private investor would touch it with a 10ft pole.

 

The only way the Government could offload their stake would be to give it a cash infusion to pay down the debt then sell it as fast as possible while there was zero debt on the balance sheet.

 

And let's all start a book on whether that scenario will happen! 

 

Most legacy airlines after 911 went through the difficult process of restructuring their business, but not TG, it's continued to be a hobby project for RTAF and the HiSo elite.

 

The fleet mix and their seemingly insatiable appetite to buy aircraft is a case in point. 

 

Most airlines lease a good percentage of their aircraft, since it gives them flexibility and they are not carrying so much debt which they have to depreciate year on year.

 

The A380 is a great case in point. As lovely an aircraft as it is, it's not operationally profitable for airlines, you basically need a 100% load factor to break even.

For TG is was a case of 'Oooh, SQ have these, I gotta have one'. 

 

However unlike TG, SQ leased the aircraft and like many other airlines, including LH they are returning them at the end of the lease term and replacing them with the more flexible and profitable B777 B787 A350 for long haul flights.

 

One of the multitude of TG CEO's when he came in tried to cancel the order for the A380, since he actually recognized the business reality, only to discover that the 'crack' negotiating team had signed up to cancellation terms so onerous that basically they had no choice but to take them.

 

He didn't last long!

 

TiT, they will continue to have countless meetings, it will continue to bleed cash, and I and most of you will have turned to dust before anything changes

 

 

Edited October 4, 2019 by GinBoy2

[jackinthebox]

Don't worry! The opening of Betong Airport next year will change everything. And for the unlikely case there ist still a loss- the expansion of runways at the Mae Sot and Betong airports will solve the problem....

 

[wotsdermatter]

Compare all of the airlines founded in the Gulf States to Thai Airways and get a true evaluation when comparing all of their dates of being founded, including Thai.  All, except Thai Airways, have been profitable from day one and continue to do so including expand their fleets and increase the number of their destinations.  Very few complaints about any of them, but not so Thai which I gave up using a couple of years ago as the service was unimaginably terrible as was the comfort of the seats and the quality of food served.  Why do people continue to be gouged by them because their prices are not reflective of anything they offer to be worthwhile.

'nuf sed