Perhaps someone should explain to the Thais the understanding of the saying "flogging a dead horse", or maybe "flogging a dead buffalo" would be more suitable, or perhaps even "the first action when digging yourself into a hole, is to stop digging". I stopped using Thai Air, after I had to queue for 2 hours at Swampy to check-in when to my logic it seemed stupid that I was in the Thai international airport trying to check-in to the Thai international airline and they were incapable of processing the passengers in their own country, but then again, I'm fickle ????

19 hours ago, perry21 said:

I think many of us will be unsurprised by the collapse in passenger numbers. But the freight results are shocking. If this is any guide as to what's happening in the real economy, these numbers are beyond awful. I am astonished and hope someone with better insight can perhaps shed some light. Regional GDP has bounced back reasonably strongly in much of Asia but this does not seem to be reflected in these freight figures. 

The freight numbers shocked me as well

 

Many airlines are keeping themselves afloat by aggressively converting aircraft for freight, in point of fact I just read an article on KLM's freight strategy.

 

TG just has an inbuilt ability for incompetence. Real airlines are converting capital assets to move freight to generate revenue.

TG is moving aircraft seats to donut shops!

 

I thought I'd seen some of the worst of TG ineptitude, coupled with a large side order of corruption thrown in.

 

But this final death throes is embarrassing and rather sad to watch, for an airline, which back in the 90's was 'Smooth as Silk'

3 hours ago, mar zarych said:

15 years ago I flew THAI internationally all the time.

 Then some genius started pricing the passenger tickets above ALL other air carriers. They were still doing it when the pandemic arrived. Plain stupid.  Although I always compared prices I have not purchased a ticket on THAI in 15 years. Its not rocket science. 

Another example of how the Thai mindset works. They thought that their airline was far superior to everybody else's so people should pay more for their flights. The obvious result of that was a downturn in the number of passengers, so a reasonably intelligent person would bring their prices back down to attract more customers.

 

That is not how the Thai mind works. The Thai mind says "We have less customers, so we have to charge them more to make the same amount of money" I have seen it time and time again where the Thai owners/Mamasans of bars that are now long gone had the same attitude.

 

And of course, there is that good old chestnut - "loss of face". Putting your prices down means that you are admitting to others that you are not a successful (business) person, and better to lose money than to lose face. Unfortunately that can also mean to lose your livelihood. 

 

Until that attitude changes, Thailand will never be anywhere near as successful as it could be, (has been?) and I fear that the ship may have sailed already as far as tourism/airplane tickets are concerned, as more and more people find.cheaper and better alternatives in this part of the world. Put into the equation the constantly changing rules ,regulations, requirements and suggestions by Immigration (and not just Covid inspired) and the picture becomes clearer. Going back to my earlier statement - "We have less customers, so we have to charge them more to make the same amount of money", think "Wealthy Chinese" and it becomes even clearer. Thailand does not appear to want your average (farang) Joe and Family any more - they have set their sights on what they think is a more lucrative market, but I fear that if they follow that path, in a few years time, it will be a case of "the tail wagging the dog", so to speak (e.g. Hong Kong) and Thailand will be owned and paid for by China - the 39 "pioneers" that arrived last week will be able to testify to that in future years no doubt. Just IMHO, you understand!

 

 

  

Mindset of Thai management! Hilarious that Covid brought the end of the airline because governments were not prepared to throw out the failing Thaiair executives and bring in foreign management  all the years before the virus killed airtravel for a year . Yeah I know that was never going to happen ! 'thai know best, farang not understand'

Edited November 13, 20205 yr by pixelaoffy

 

You will have to prove 500k before boarding Thai. Hahahaha

17 hours ago, Mr Meeseeks said:

I am surprised that as an insolvent and bankrupt business they are still allowed to keep going, keep racking up billions of debt, and keep stringing their creditors along.

 

They are ever going to be able to pay off that debt. It's just not economically possible, even without the black swan event that was COVID-19.

 

Biggest boondoggle in aviation history. In future they will write books about it.

I suppose you mean NEVER ?

19 hours ago, thedemon said:

 

I'm not sure who I feel more sorry for; the thousands of employees that have lost their careers and are now struggling to take care of their families or someone that obviously has such a miserable life that they would make a comment like this.

My life is wonderful. I despise bad people, and THAI are generally bad. A perfect reflection of the worst of common Thai national characteristics: arrogance and incompetence 

"little light ahead" - - that's just the oncoming express train entering the tunnel..... 

On 11/13/2020 at 6:00 AM, mar zarych said:

15 years ago I flew THAI internationally all the time.

 Then some genius started pricing the passenger tickets above ALL other air carriers. They were still doing it when the pandemic arrived. Plain stupid.  Although I always compared prices I have not purchased a ticket on THAI in 15 years. Its not rocket science. 

 

I am not sure if high prices is the reason. As reported in the article, the airline's passenger load factor was 80% last year. At this point, a regular carrier would already have reached its break-even. So something else seems to be mis-managed.

Edited November 14, 20205 yr by Mak25

Some time ago, didn't Singapore airlines want to buy THAI?   Pity they did not take up that offer, probably not valid now.

THAI has lost the international market to ME airlines and the domestic market to the budget carriers, so nowhere to turn to now.  When air traffic recovers, the only asset thy will have will be their landing slots in Europe

perhaps their one hope for money making this year would be; 

open Thailand to tourism before Christmas and give priority to anyone flying in on THAI.  Might be enough desperate expats trying to get back that would pay for this scam.  Might make enough from this to pay off the bills before finally disappearing?

If there are redundancies, bet it will no be from the upper management.

8 minutes ago, Robin said:

Some time ago, didn't Singapore airlines want to buy THAI?   Pity they did not take up that offer, probably not valid now.

THAI has lost the international market to ME airlines and the domestic market to the budget carriers, so nowhere to turn to now.  When air traffic recovers, the only asset thy will have will be their landing slots in Europe

perhaps their one hope for money making this year would be; 

open Thailand to tourism before Christmas and give priority to anyone flying in on THAI.  Might be enough desperate expats trying to get back that would pay for this scam.  Might make enough from this to pay off the bills before finally disappearing?

If there are redundancies, bet it will no be from the upper management.

I can't remember any story about SQ wanting to buy TG, but I could be wrong.

 

Problem right now any thought of selling it is fanciful.  The whole industry is on its knees, so who would take on a company and assume TG's enormous debt? Thats just a non starter.

 

Offer whatever promo's, getting desperate expats back home, a few sexpats, it's but a drop in the bucket, not unlike airline seats in donut shops!

Not going to change the ultimate outcome

 

Domestically, Thai Smile(WE) does compete with the LCC's.

Trouble is if you read their financials, they only publish consolidated results for the entire group, never breaking out WE as a separate entity.

So it's impossible to judge how WE competes against the competition

On 11/13/2020 at 10:24 AM, GinBoy2 said:

The freight numbers shocked me as well

 

Many airlines are keeping themselves afloat by aggressively converting aircraft for freight, in point of fact I just read an article on KLM's freight strategy.

 

TG just has an inbuilt ability for incompetence. Real airlines are converting capital assets to move freight to generate revenue.

TG is moving aircraft seats to donut shops!

 

THAI is also converting passenger aircraft to freight. Just watched a documentary on TV about the process focusing on a THAI plane.