Thai Airways: A Downward Spiral of Service, Accountability, and National Pride

[cracker1]

40 minutes ago, richard_smith237 said:

 

Same here...  as per the article - it was very annoying after amassing miles that they devalued then, effectively halving their value. 

 

Then there is the issue of actually being able to secure Award Seats...   

We are flying with then in a couple of weeks...   we had to book our Airmiles seats 330 days in advance and few flights had Airmiles seats available. 

Contrast this with many other airlines and if you have air-miles you can get any seat, the don't allocate limited seats per flight etc.

 

One improvement is the Cash+Miles option... but we are maxed out on 50,000 miles to spend per ticket, which is also limiting when you have over 200,000 miles etc and Award seats are not available.

 

All they need to do is Copy Emirates...     how hard is that ?

 

 

 

 

Copy Emirates and employ a foreign highly qualified CEO as they did !

[findlay13]

2 minutes ago, cracker1 said:

Copy Emirates and employ a foreign highly qualified CEO as they did !

It didn't work for Qantas or Telstra in Oz.I couldn't see the Thais employing anyone not "connected" anyway

[proton]

16 minutes ago, eyeman said:

Across the board economy catering has got worse over the last decade, the applies to everything from Qatar Airways to Emirates, but Thai Airways catering is something else, absolutely horrendous on international. I wouldn't fly them international again even if they were the cheapest.

The only good thing is that they cancel and reschedule domestic flights so often that you can generally bet on a free flight change if you got something booked a few months out..

 

And always late, gets worse as the day goes on, but sometimes they can't even get their noon flights out on time.. Also annoying is they don't declare it's late until the last possible moment, even if they are fully aware of a long delay as inbound flight is nowhere to be seen, on domestic the lounges are prior to security so that's annoying as hell.

 

Hit and miss with food, better on some legs than other with the same airline. Last year on emirates economy it was the best food I ever had on a flight, time before on Qatar Q class the food was the worst and worse even than their own economy. Any airline is better than TG though, food not fit for a soi dog.

[it is what it is]

 

i've only flown thai once, that was because it was a flight share with the airline i booked with. the flight was notable for the fact the seats didn't recline - i've never experienced that on any other airline, and there was an announcement at the beginning of the flight requesting passengers not to lie down on the floor. bizarre.

 

that said, finair and klm were worse.

[MrJ2U]

Sadly, now they've combined Thai Smile under there umbrella.  I really enjoyed flying them domestically.

 

 

 

[jayboy]

1 hour ago, DualSportBiker said:

The lass next to me was TG staff. They were overstaffed and she got the short straw for not working that leg. They put her in business class and did not upgrade one of many regular gold-card holding customers. When I asked her why she was not in economy and an upgraded customer in her place she simply asked 'Why would we do that?'

 

Many years ago when British Airways was still a well regarded airline its Chairman,Sir John King, was on a business trip from London to New York flying First Class.He heard from the crew that there had been some overbooking and that unfortunately a First Class passenger had had to be consigned to the back of the plane.He immediately got up collected his bags and told the crew to switch him with the aggrieved passenger.His view that paying passengers should always get priority over BA staff however exalted they were.So Sir John went cattle class to New York that day.

 

A year or so ago I told this story to a Thai friend who was very familiar with TG.His reaction was that not only would TG managers find the story hard to believe but they would completely fail to understand the mindset of Sir John and the priority he gave to paying passengers.Sir John was no shrinking violet.He was a self made hard as nails businessman and could be ruthless - but he understood the important things.

[scorecard]

4 hours ago, proton said:

 

When was that? even in the 90's Thais I knew in the UK always used Eva as they claimed they got poor service from Thai. I had to agree with them after a while when buying a one way ticket having a multi entry visa, they sent an email saying I would not be allowed to enter with it. They would not answer emails or the phone so had to go to the office London. When I got there just two staff no customers and phone ringing not answered, when I asked them they did not know they had to ring the check in staff at Heathrow- no problem, why the email then? oh rules must have changed. Never used them after that.

Around 1990 I was in my employers BKK office and moved to a regional position which required me to be in several offices every week. Hence regular day trips / 2 days trips etc., from Bangkok to : S'pore, HK, KL, Shanghai, Beijing, Djakarta and return.

 

Had to use TG because of company policy from HQ in Europe (must use the national airline of the  country where the staff member is located).

 

I quickly realised that TG attitudes, service and behaviours were less than expected of a full fare international airline. And especially since we had a contract to use TG flights for all staff (total about 15). 

 

My Thai colleagues complained every week about poor TG service, failure to get any answers, failure to get even basic check-in, cabin service, arrival service.

 

I also discovered that trying to complain was a waste of time:

- Sorry we don't have a complaints department, we don't need that.

- Yes my aunt is the complains manager but not here now. Please ask her to call back - cannot she has a personal policy she doesn't return calls.  What time will she be in her office - about 12:00 noon because she has to take the children to school and have breakfast with them then she goes to the market to buy fresh food for her maid to make dinner.

 

Travelling business class evening flight HK to Bkk- 2 incidents:

• No business class cabin crew available on boarding - they were having a birthday party in the galley and holding the curtains shut.
• Dinner served very quickly immediately on departure, and then a trolley placed at the front of the bus class cabin with drinks, mixers, glasses, ice and an announcement; 'TG has a new policy, after dinner finished in bus. class all drinks are self service'. Real reason - a birthday party in the galley and no response whatever to passengers pressing the overhead service button.
•  

Worst of all - travelling business class Bkk to Jakarta  with my 18 yr old Thai son (I paid for my son's ticket, most expensive class of ticket to match my ticket - I needed to have full flexibility to change days / flights / dep. times etc., because of client requests.

 

After dinner all served and everything packed away my Thai son asked the hostess for a glass of Coca Cola - the response, hostie just kept walking down the aisle and yelled back at my son 'Go and ask in economy class'. A lot more negative detail but not now.  

 

Two days later I was at a snr. m'ment meeting At TG in Bkk. I mentioned the Coca Cola incident to a director responsible for 'customer experience'. He laughed and said 'don't worry I'm sure it will be OK next time' and changed the subject. 

Edited January 29 by scorecard

[jollyhangmon]

49 minutes ago, tomazbodner said:

I was usually continuing to KLU, so I took Austrian most of the time, but their price was higher than this a few months back, about 50k on promo, about 70k normally. Used to be about 35-40k before COVID.

 

... yes, personally only used Austrian 2, 3 times for short trips like Spain or Greece, just another overpriced 'legacy' carrier and even better long since firmly in German hands (Lufthansa), lol ...

 

Darn, had to look up KLU / Klagenfurt alright ... well, have a look into EVA ... also more expensive now - looks like at least some of the competitors (like Egypt Air, alas not direct)  just fell off the grid here - but still better than Thai or Austrian.

 

Then again, maybe connection for you to KLU not suitable timewise, cause I just take the train from VIE basically every 30 mins at least ...

[newbee2022]

5 hours ago, webfact said:

Five years ago, in 2018, Thai Airways proudly ranked the 10th best airline in the world, according to Skytrax. Fast forward to today, the airline has fallen to 40th. 

 

Amidst plumetting rankings and the precarious financial situation it’s in, customers are suffering the ramifications and repercussions of its declining policies and services. 

 

The Deterioration of Thai Airways’ Miles Program

Thai Airways filed for bankruptcy protection in 2020 during Covid and are currently completing their restructuring. 

 

But even before Covid, the airline underwent a restructuring of their mileage program, devaluing their miles immensely. In October 2019, miles needed for certain reward seats more than doubled. The airline also doesn’t allow “pooling” of miles, so if you have miles spread across different family members, you can’t transfer them to each other to be utilized.

 

This contrasts with other airlines in the region, such as Korean Air, whose “Family Plan” allows you to pool miles from up to five different family members. Transferring miles to other accounts is also possible on Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific. 

 

by Tessa Charupatanapongse

 

Full story: THAI ENQUIRER 2024-01-29

 

- Cigna offers a range of visa-compliant plans that meet the minimum requirement of medical treatment, including COVID-19, up to THB 3m. For more information on all expat health insurance plans click here.

 

Get our Daily Newsletter - Click HERE to subscribe

 

That's ridiculous. And unimportant. Totally.

An airline should be reliable in safety! Maybe have comfortable seats, good healthy food, a variety of drinks, and good air fare prices. 🙏

[northsouthdevide]

4 hours ago, soi3eddie said:

THAI will blame their ranking decline on Covid and their bankcruptcy. Nothing else. 

 

THAI were, in my opinion, much better before Covid and all the cost cutting through bankcruptcy. As they shed staff, the onboard service and smiles declined. Food and beverage declined too. Still no menu cards in transcontinental business class and less quality choices. With the now higher fares being charged, there is no excuse for THAI not to be back in the top 10 globally. Just goes to show how poorly managed the airline still is.

 

The cut in mileage redemptions awards in 2019 was dissapointing, but back then I would suspect that very few passengers in business or first class were paying for their seats. Also, the rumours of freebies for "connected individuals" was rife.  

 

Having said the above, it is still my favoured airline for LHR/BKK/LHR due to scheduling and ease of travel (and until my ROP Gold expires).

 

Youre right about that, and there is some substance in it from thai`s side of things, but the biggest reason for thais decline was that while the rest of the airline industry was introducing smaller less fuel guzzling aircraft, the exects at thai done a big deal for giant cumbersome aircraft that put them under extreem preasure to break even with high running costs, let alone compete with thier rivals. 

[kalasiner]

3 hours ago, jollyhangmon said:

... yep, just look at their 'opening' price, that's FROM 41k thb upwards, round-trip supposedly but haven't looked into it ... too freakin' expensive in comparison anyway & always have been ... no thanks, no more questions, 555 ...

 

 

If you had "looked into it" you would have found out that Thai Airways haven't flown to Vienna for a number of years.

This route is now served only by Austrian Airlines and EVA Air.

[ezzra]

I will be flying business class from Bkk return to Melb soon using award 100k points as part of the ticket cost and

that only reduced the price of the ticket by about 10 k baht, hopefully it will be a good flight as reading this thread 

getting me uncomfortable a bit already... 

[jollyhangmon]

27 minutes ago, kalasiner said:

If you had "looked into it" you would have found out that Thai Airways haven't flown to Vienna for a number of years.

This route is now served only by Austrian Airlines and EVA Air.

 

... 555, and for good reason - not missed either!

 

[Rampant Rabbit]

2 hours ago, retarius said:

TBH I haven't flown them since 2008. It was a business class flight from Tokyo and the service was appalling. Never again, Fool me once....

Theyre  all the same, Oman Air, Gulf Air, Emirates, |Turkish had crap service from all of them......all Business  flights, none of them could  care  less  about the customer anymore. Best flight I had Sri Lankan air, old  planes great crew and service.

[Megasin1]

Thai have gone away...its EVA all the way. Long, long before covid I finished with Thai when they had an hour long check-in queue at Swampy....national airline in their home airport and immediate thought was...won't do that again...never looked back....even the Thais I know prefer EVA.

[MrMo]

Can I see a defamation suite being reported on soon ?

[quake]

Used Thai airways for years, all company paid international flights. ( cattle class )

Never had an issue with them. food was ok

wine always flowing, staff ok.

It was such a hardship,  to sit there, watch a few movies and drink wine, whilst being paid, a terrible state of affairs. 

Last flight 2014. retired now. 

bye to regular long hall flights. 

 

Edited January 29 by quake

[keithkarmann]

Still owe me 24000 baht

[richard_smith237]

2 hours ago, findlay13 said:

I couldn't see the Thais employing anyone not "connected" anyway

 

I think that may well be the crux of the issue..   

[geisha]

I flew with them in the early 80s. Times were different and long haul still exciting for me. Flight’s weren’t overcrowded. No complaints then. Since the first ever Emirates flights , I’d given up Thai forever. Such a difference. Then I stopped using Thai for domestic too, especially after a particularly rattling flight from Phuket to Bangkok where I thought the ancient 747 was going to fall apart. I would never even consider using Thai again even if their rates were competitive.  I now use Swiss or Lufthansa for EU/ Asia which are absolutely splendid! And Singapore Airlines when needed. 

[tomazbodner]

2 hours ago, jollyhangmon said:

 

... yes, personally only used Austrian 2, 3 times for short trips like Spain or Greece, just another overpriced 'legacy' carrier and even better long since firmly in German hands (Lufthansa), lol ...

 

Darn, had to look up KLU / Klagenfurt alright ... well, have a look into EVA ... also more expensive now - looks like at least some of the competitors (like Egypt Air, alas not direct)  just fell off the grid here - but still better than Thai or Austrian.

 

Then again, maybe connection for you to KLU not suitable timewise, cause I just take the train from VIE basically every 30 mins at least ...

I used to take bus to Südbahnhof and then take train to Klagenfurt but... it takes some time, and stops very short time at each stop, maybe 2 minutes. Stopped taking them after tiring flight landing in the evening, in stroke of bad luck my train was from TrenItalia, which departed nearly 3 hours late. Fell asleep on the train and woke up in Villach... middle of the night... in December. At least on the plane someone wakes you up when you arrive.

 

And that plane's actually nice now... after always broken Dash8 got replaced with a modern jet.

 

Buying the VIE-KLU flight separately added nearly 20k baht to my flights with other airlines, so I've switched to Austrian since overall it was a lot faster and ended up cheaper. Depart 11.30 pm or so, arrive Vienna 5-6 am, depending on season, 3 hours later in another plane, and by 10.30 am at Klagenfurt. On return 6.30 or so pm plane to Vienna, 11.30 or so to Bangkok to arrive about 2:30 pm the next day. Convenient. Despite being packed like sardines, and all that Do&Co culinary delights gone, and food only eaten because you can't order anything else at 35k ft...

[chiman]

Was 100% committed to Thai for many years starting back in 2005.  After they lost FAA certification and were no longer allowed to land at American airports, I felt unsure of their safety.  Further, flight after flight the condition of the planes degraded with broken screens, seats, all around visual lack of maintenance.  If they don’t maintain the interior of the plane, how do you think they are doing with the engines?   And now, all those planes sitting in the heat since covid?  No thanks..  It’s sad.. Thailand is one of the most visited countries in the world and Thai airways could be shuttling people in all day long..  Hoping United opens direct flights one day, they are aggressively expanding into the Asian market.  

[Perhaps2more]

7 hours ago, proton said:

 

When was that? even in the 90's Thais I knew in the UK always used Eva as they claimed they got poor service from Thai. I had to agree with them after a while when buying a one way ticket having a multi entry visa, they sent an email saying I would not be allowed to enter with it. They would not answer emails or the phone so had to go to the office London. When I got there just two staff no customers and phone ringing not answered, when I asked them they did not know they had to ring the check in staff at Heathrow- no problem, why the email then? oh rules must have changed. Never used them after that.

Now Thai staff are moving to Eva and bringing with them the same bias service. Not to worry if you are Caucasian or non-Asian. Thai airways' main principle was to bring in guests to Thailand but not for their lowly Thais. 

[Keeps]

I use EVA for LHR-BKK-LHR around 4 times per year. Usually Elite class (premium economy). The prices have increased significantly since Covid but are still very favourable compared to Thai Air. I had to use Thai Air in June 22 as EVA had still not resumed flying this route post Covid. Awful experience and the ticket price for economy was in excess of what I had been paying for EVA premium economy.

 

One of the great things when booking with EVA is you can mix and match which class you fly over the two legs (and request upgrades redeeming miles depending on fare type). I have previously flown LHR-BKK in economy (luckily get priority free seat choice due to EVA/Star Alliance gold card). As the flight departs around 9.30pm quite happy to get the front row window seat in economy, couple of beers and sleep for most of the journey. I then travel the BKK-LHR leg in Elite or Royal Laurel as it is a lunchtime departure and I am unlikely to sleep.

 

Even EVA are not as good as they were maybe 5 or 10 years ago but still streets ahead of Thai.

[Cabradelmar]

The PMs idea that BKK can be THE regional SE Asia hub loses steam when the nations flagship carrier is such a tragic story.

[daveAustin]

Never really had an issue with them over the years, guess I’ve just been lucky, but fully understand it could all go tits up if things go wrong. Main plus for me is direct and departure/arrival times being good. 

[khunjake]

The golden era with Thai for me was from 2003 until 2008. I would fly TG exclusively all around APAC and the prices for business class at that time were very reasonable. I held both Platinum and Gold status for many years and it all went down the toilet right around the time they cancelled the nonstop LAX (and JFK) to/from BKK flight using the gas guzzler A340-500. It was the climax and I pretty much stopped flying them completely by 2010. I don’t think I ever had a cancelled or seriously delayed flight at all during those times and no issues with getting plenty of comped upgrades. It was great while it lasted…

[CANSIAM]

Taxied slowly by 6 Thai Airway A380's the other day,  paint fading away in the blazing heat, what a waste, better dwindle back to 737's and some A350's to reach Europe........

[Hanaguma]

Did a few VERY long haul (Hong Kong to Toronto nonstop) trips in the past 6-8 years on Cathay Pacific. Good service, lots of attention and drink flowing smoothly, easy on the eyes flight crew as a bonus.

 

Flew Scare Canada once from Tokyo to Calgary.   Once.   Wide hipped battleaxes slinging hash at the cattle, window shades down please! as soon as meal service was done (the better to keep the sheeple asleep and not demanding service), lots of noise and gossip from the galley that precluded getting any rest.  Never again.

[still kicking]

10 hours ago, soi3eddie said:

THAI will blame their ranking decline on Covid and their bankcruptcy. Nothing else. 

 

THAI were, in my opinion, much better before Covid and all the cost cutting through bankcruptcy. As they shed staff, the onboard service and smiles declined. Food and beverage declined too. Still no menu cards in transcontinental business class and less quality choices. With the now higher fares being charged, there is no excuse for THAI not to be back in the top 10 globally. Just goes to show how poorly managed the airline still is.

 

The cut in mileage redemptions awards in 2019 was dissapointing, but back then I would suspect that very few passengers in business or first class were paying for their seats. Also, the rumours of freebies for "connected individuals" was rife.  

 

Having said the above, it is still my favoured airline for LHR/BKK/LHR due to scheduling and ease of travel (and until my ROP Gold expires).

 

It used to be my favourite airline as well because it was the only airline who flew non-stop Perth- BKK till Covid put a stop to it but it will resume again in March.