Thai Lion acquires its first A330 Neo

[rooster59]

Thai Lion acquires its first A330 Neo

By The Nation

 

 

Thai Lion Air has added its first A330 Neo aircraft into its fleet to strengthen its operations. Aswin Yangkirativorn, the airline’s chief executive officer, said on Friday (October 25) that the new aircraft serves the airline’s plan to boost the number of flights and expand routes. 

 

The aircraft will be used in fights to Indonesia (Jakarta and Bali), Japan (Tokyo, Narita, Fukuoka, Nagoya and Osaka), Taiwan and China. He expects up to 80 per cent of the aircraft to be filled on nearly every route. 

 

The A330 Neo is known for its fuel-efficiency and longer flight reach.

 

Source: https://www.nationthailand.com/news/30377749

 

-- © Copyright The Nation Thailand 2019-10-26

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[pegman]

At least these Air Bus planes have been staying in the air better than Boeing planes lately.

[mok199]

Complete with an onboard monk...for those who feel the need to make merit at 30,000 ft...

[Burma Bill]

Quote:-

"the new aircraft serves the airline’s plan to boost the number of flights and expand routes"

Good news, but so different from another airline on the verge of collapse! 

 

[cheshiremusicman]

Yet ANOTHER nail in the Thai Airways coffin and more to come!

[new2here]

I have long argued that Thai has a mixed blessing in that they are “home” to one of the fastest geographic growth rates in terms of organic air travel demand growth (China leading the pack of course) and also “home” to several well-established, globally recognized carriers (SQ, JL, CX etc for example)

So, Thai competes in an ever increasing market (good) and also in market that has some of the best competition as well (not necessarily bad)

I think Thai recognizes that, unlike say HKG, SIN, TYO or ICN, BKK doesn’t have the same level of demand for paid premium cabin traffic.. so I’m not sure there is a justifiable argument for there being a true F cabin... I think TGs future is better aligned to a J, PE (a true Premium Economy) and Y cabin config... They may have some high-J models that run say LHR/CDG or the like, where there is a reliable volume of paid premium traffic..

Concurrent with this, I think they need to move away from nearly all forms of mainline domestic and regional flying — moving it to Thai Smile.

I would, however, reconfigure WE in that I think purely domestic volume and routes under 2hrs, should be run with something like they have now, the single cabin A320... but for regional flying (say routes at or under 3.5 hours) I’d run that with something like Singapore’s Silk Air does - with an older B772 with a second generation 2-cabin J/Y config.. or ever an older A330 with a second-generation J/Y config.

Thai will need that domestic and regional “feeder” volume largely because they don’t get a whole lot of off-line (Star Alliance or other interline agreement) feeder volume to/from BKK... so they’ll need to create their own organic feeder volume to justify and fill their long haul network.... other Asian hubs like SIN, HKG and ICN exists with equal or better global connectivity... so Thai will have to really dominate their backyard volume (domestic) AND regional volume if they want to be successful long haul wise.

Price point wise - something that I agree Thai has mismanaged... I think that you CAN intentionally price yourself at the premium end of the spectrum —- BUT— I think of you chose to go that route, you’ll really have to have both the hard and soft products to justify that pricing model... and right now, today, I don’t think Thai has it.

I DON’T think the answer is going to the other end of the pricing spectrum either and trying to compete against the Air Asia’s of the region either- their CASM (Cost per Available Seat Mile) is structurally set up to be lower than someone like TG and I don’t think Thai will ever really be able to get down to that level given the current infrastructure they have.

On the labour side, I don’t think you can really “cost reduce” yourself into true long term profitability... so I think there will have to be both cost controls AND revenue increases.

As far as staff, both front-line as well as mid to upper management goes, I think they’ll have to take a close, hard look at how they’re structured and what, if any, restructuring can be done to become more efficiently and lean.

As example only, I’d wonder what’s the cost/revenue breakdown to their Silom city ticket office? Given that nearly all ticketing is now “E” ticketing, I’d wonder what revenue is originated at or value added services provided at Silom - and at what cost?



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