38 minutes ago, Prince77 said:

As a start stop giving free premium seats to friends, cronies and everybody in uniform. Re-fresh the frequent Flyer program to be more attractive, offer a Status match to steal customer from other airlines and start taking care about paying customers.

 

It does rather seem that the pigs have emptied the trough. Still, this is Thailand, there'll be another trough along quite soon...

23 minutes ago, ParkerN said:

Everyone has an opinions, lots have opinions about Thais in general, I suggest you canvass the posts on TV. I think you'll find many more people agreeing with me than disagreeing; in fact I am much more qualified to comment on the general hopelessness of Thais than I am to comment on THAI, but since THAI is, well, THAI, I suspect the general malaise afficting Thais is also present in THAI. Perhaps you know better?

 

 

 

 

I tend not to want to just bash Thai's (or anyone else) for the sake of it and to restrict my comments to things I know about.

7 hours ago, Creasy said:

Just turn off the life support and let the airline flatline.

Never gonna happen; too much 'Face' to be lost !

7 hours ago, bluesofa said:

I haven't travelled by air for a few years now, but am baffled that people pay more to have a 'seat with extra space'. Aren't they all the same size in, say, economy?

Having said that, what sort of premium are they likely to pay in order to generate 70 million Baht a month?

“Preferred seats” sound to be like a redesign to make options available  for long-legged people like me. 

4 hours ago, BobbyL said:

The ‘preferred seats’ service has been well received, expected to increase THAI's revenue by Bt70 million per month”, the president said.

 

So they're expecting to be making around $2M a month because of offering seat selection beforehand. Approx $66,000 a day ????????????

 

 

Actually $66,000 per day in seat fees alone isn’t all that aggressive IMHO.... as example, if for example a seat fee is US$100, you’d only need 660 people to do so.

 

TG operates to just about 14 Euro region destinations (some may not be daily or may offer more than daily) with larger capacity frames.

 

So, if you take an average Y cabin - whereby some of the 787s have Y cabins in the mid-200 count... larger 773s and 744s are in the low- to mid-300s in count... and lastly, the A388s are in the low 400s in count, you really only need less than 50 people per flight (assuming 14) to buy up.

 

... and this only looks at their Euro sector, and not their Australian, North Asia or regional flying either... all these could also be potential seat fee generators as well... 

 

so.... 660, to me, is quite reachable.

 

I’d guess on a euro sector you’d charge a bit compared to sectors that are regional or even medium-haul..

2 hours ago, saengd said:

I tend not to want to just bash Thai's (or anyone else) for the sake of it and to restrict my comments to things I know about.

Excellent. A good way to improve the repertoire. It'll take a while no doubt, but it'll be worth it in the end. Self-improvemen is always worthwhile and you never know, it might even get to be fashionable - you know - hisos and the like.

 

Excellent.

Edited December 19, 20196 yr by ParkerN

Oi THAI youre  so  dumb ...AIR  FRANCE BKK to UK 65000 Business  class................THAI 140,000 business  class hmmmmmmmmmm let me see which shall I choose??

Maybe they should start with hiring someone that knows how to run an airline?

2 hours ago, Redline said:

Maybe they should start with hiring someone that knows how to run an airline?

Instead of just doing what they're told and signing the withdrawal slip?

 

Interesting idea...

 

But nah; it'll never happen. Not in Thailand.

 

 

How timely was that!

 

"The results were revealed in Which? Travel’s annual airline survey, which rated 17 short-haul and 15 long-haul airlines operating flights to and from the UK based on the experiences of 6,500 holidaymakers."

 

Note where Thai Airways is and then note where BA sits....arf arf!

 

https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/worst-airlines-ryanair-british-airways-which-survey-a9251656.html

Long-haul airlines (best to worst)

1. Singapore Airlines
2. Qatar Airways
3. Emirates
4. Virgin Atlantic
5. KLM
6. Air Transat
7. Thai Airways
8. Delta Airlines
9. Tui Airways
10. Qantas
11. United Airlines
12. Air Canada
13. Etihad Airways
14. British Airways
15. American Airlines

Edited December 19, 20196 yr by saengd

On 12/19/2019 at 7:06 AM, Momofarang said:

On long haul flights 4 (or 6) inches make a hell of a difference, when it comes to legroom. As well as for any other illicit activity in the lavatories.

My wife also wishes I had an extra 4 inches

15 hours ago, saengd said:

How timely was that!

 

"The results were revealed in Which? Travel’s annual airline survey, which rated 17 short-haul and 15 long-haul airlines operating flights to and from the UK based on the experiences of 6,500 holidaymakers."

 

Note where Thai Airways is and then note where BA sits....arf arf!

 

https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/worst-airlines-ryanair-british-airways-which-survey-a9251656.html

Long-haul airlines (best to worst)

1. Singapore Airlines
2. Qatar Airways
3. Emirates
4. Virgin Atlantic
5. KLM
6. Air Transat
7. Thai Airways
8. Delta Airlines
9. Tui Airways
10. Qantas
11. United Airlines
12. Air Canada
13. Etihad Airways
14. British Airways
15. American Airlines

Customer satisfaction surveys are always somewhat problematic in my mind.

 

As a disclaimer I work for Delta.

 

Airlines do what they do primarily to make money for themselves and ultimately shareholders. 

 

If they deliver a product so crappy, they lose customers, they lose revenue and profit.

 

So its a fine line between, what they can get away with while retaining customers.

 

SQ I absolutely agree gives a premium product, yet profitability is in the 'meh' category.

 

Southwest gives service often despised, yet it's in the top tier of profitability, mainly because it flies on routes with a price people can't resist.

 

As for the stupidity of TG buying new aircraft as a way to save themselves, totally folly.

Granted some their fleet is horribly outdated, but one of the reason that Delta has such great profitability even though they operate one of the oldest fleets, is by maximizing airframe hours on an assets that are already fully depreciated.

That way you can actually tolerate lower passenger load factors and still make money.

 

I load at least one aging B717 every day, with loads that are anywhere between 60-100%, but even at 60% Delta is breaking even.

 

The airline industry is tough, with wafer thin margins, but the basic economics of it aren't a mystery, but then again to TG management it seems unfathomable!

 

I like this line: "So its a fine line between, what they can get away with while retaining customers".

8 hours ago, saengd said:

I like this line: "So its a fine line between, what they can get away with while retaining customers".

When I read that out of context it does sound funny.

 

But airlines are no different to any business in as much as they try to minimize what they have to deliver to the customer, thereby increasing profits...well not in TG's case of course since they have no profit!

 

With airlines of course the customer is at the sharp end of all this. The continual shrinking of seat pitch to squeeze more passengers into aircraft is the most obvious.

 

Edited December 20, 20196 yr by GinBoy2

A few years ago we were flying with Thai Bangkok to London Paid for First Class.On boarding the aircraft we were told that First class was "closed" and we had been moved to Business class.(I found out later that some HiSos had missed their earlier flight and were moved to this flight).After the flight I wrote to Thai requesting a refund of the difference between First and Business class.They replied that they were under no obligation to offer any form of refund or compensation and that the matter was closed.Subsequent letters were ignored.

Guess who has never flown Thai since?

8 minutes ago, CeeGee said:

A few years ago we were flying with Thai Bangkok to London Paid for First Class.On boarding the aircraft we were told that First class was "closed" and we had been moved to Business class.(I found out later that some HiSos had missed their earlier flight and were moved to this flight).After the flight I wrote to Thai requesting a refund of the difference between First and Business class.They replied that they were under no obligation to offer any form of refund or compensation and that the matter was closed.Subsequent letters were ignored.

Guess who has never flown Thai since?

Thats part of the problem when you try to run an airline as a 'hobby' for a certain section of society.

 

Cancelled flights, oversold flights are the nature of the business, but in real airlines there is a price to pay for that.

 

Last week on one of our flights to Minneapolis we were horribly oversold, I was up to offering $1000 for people to volunteer to take later fights.

 

In the TG model, that would be just bump the LoSo's for the HiSo's and tough luck