Thai Airways sues over passenger’s flight diversion criticism

[waders123]

In Thailand's current legal approach to addressing complaints or reviews, there's a risk of exacerbating damage to their image. Accepting the inevitability of dissenting opinions, especially in the evolving landscape of social media and communication channels, might be a more prudent strategy. Adapting to this reality seems more constructive than engaging in legal battles that could potentially draw negative attention, bad PR, or inadvertently amplify the spotlight on those seeking to criticize or attack.

[Rampant Rabbit]

at least they paid  back all those consumers they owed refunds to during covid............ didnt they

[Ricardo99]

20 hours ago, soi3eddie said:

 

The THAI Airways PR department is making a mess of this. As a business, this is no way to react to customer critiscism. A simple statement on procedures and need for safety would have been plenty. Instead, they let it blow up like this threaten to sue a customer for making criticism (since retracted and apolgised for). Not a great way to treat customers. If the management have this attitude then how can that affect the attitudes of customer facing staff such as cabin crew and ground staff in the performance of their duties to the customers. Doesn't look good.

21 hours ago, bbko said:

A airline company taking legal action over a customer complaint? Wow, I would like to see the wording of the critique, but...

The passenger later deleted the original post and issued an apology after learning more about the complexities of aviation operations and the specific weather conditions that led to the captain’s decision. They expressed regret for the hastily written message and planned to apologise personally to the captain and Thai Airways management upon returning to Thailand

Key point here is the passenger is 'returning to Thailand' if they were stating in Australia or flying on elsewhere then Thai Airways could go whistle dixy! No Australia or western courts would except the suit. But Thailand's Draconian liable/slander laws allow this kind of free speech suppression. Customer knows they are in trouble once they get home!

Thailand....land of litigation!

[Yme]

22 hours ago, sirineou said:

Damned if you do and damned if you don't.

If the had not diverted , there would had been complains why they did not. 

If they were following standard procedure, then  the passenger’s post was defamation that could damage the airlines reputation and result in loss of revenue. 

The airline was right to take legal action, if I was the CEO I would have done the same, and I suspect that if this was your company you would have done the same also. 

 

 

"if I was the CEO I would have done the same, and I suspect that if this was your company you would have done the same also." 

I think it's fair to say you've never been the CEO of anything in your life. The reputational damage and derision that will result will be far more than any compensation they are likely to receive from the customer. Sheer stupidity and evidence that Thai is desperately in need of some adult leadership.  

[Pouatchee]

9 hours ago, sometimewoodworker said:

Many top tier airports do not have CATIII ILS equipment on all runways, it is horrendously expensive to install and maintain. Also there are aircraft, again from well known airlines, that are either not equipped with the equipment to take advantage of the ILS CATIII or whose pilots who are not trained and certified to use it.

 

and many tried to make the argument "would you argue with an FAA trained pilot?"

thanks you just made my case. untrained pilots... wow... thank you for that one

so what do we do if or whose pilots who are not trained and certified to use it.   and a plane has to divert to somewhere else. gets there and the weather changed and is bad, or worse than the original destination?

great job dude... no training and no equipment

 

what is the cost of a life? what is the cost of the lives of a plane full of people? economics vs safety? great argument. i clearly dont know as much as you do but you and smith love arguing for arguments

's sake. take a deep breath, relax and go back to your coffee. no one cares how birds fly, we just love to watch them. you know geeky stuff about planes most people don't. why don't you write an easy to read 10 000 word essay and present it here? 

So uneducated much???

 

 

Edited February 3 by Pouatchee

[metisdead]

Inflammatory posts and the replies contravening our Community Standards have been removed.

[Chongalulu]

This action has done more damage to the reputation of the airline then any post made by the passenger. That sounds?? Another shot in the own foot of the Thai company...

[sirineou]

1 hour ago, Yme said:

I think it's fair to say you've never been the CEO of anything in your life.

Not fair

[sirineou]

11 hours ago, khunjeff said:

Well, the company ceased to exist as of January 1st of this year, so I'm afraid you'll have to find a new favorite!

It did not. just changed it's management structure,

 Flew with them a month before the change, and flew with them a couple of weeks after the change, everything noticeable by me was exactly the same. 

[sirineou]

11 hours ago, JohnAllan said:

I haven't read the criticism ... but I seriously doubt any slander was involved.

Has anyone seen what was posted?

I have not.

[Peterphuket]

29 minutes ago, Chongalulu said:

This action has done more damage to the reputation of the airline then any post made by the passenger. That sounds?? Another shot in the own foot of the Thai company...

There reputation was already very bad the last years.

[Lopburikid]

On 2/2/2024 at 7:20 AM, steven100 said:

So the offending passenger previously withdrew the message and comments on social media and apologized.

Now the Thai's want to sue the offender for posting the criticism.

 

hmm.....    so removing / deleting the comments was not good enough for the Thai's. 

 

 

This is the part of the Lese  Majeste Law that the MFP wanted to abolish. It was only meant to protect the Royal family. The Junta extended to it that any criticism of the government could be classed as offensive and prosecute the individua. But now even a Thai restaurant, or a food stall can use it if they receive a bad review from a customer on social media.

[steven100]

15 minutes ago, Lopburikid said:

This is the part of the Lese  Majeste Law that the MFP wanted to abolish. It was only meant to protect the Royal family. The Junta extended to it that any criticism of the government could be classed as offensive and prosecute the individua. But now even a Thai restaurant, or a food stall can use it if they receive a bad review from a customer on social media.

 

So what's the point in having hotel reviews,  or restaurant reviews,  if you get a terrible meal and tell the truth in your review your in big trouble, a crappy hotel, bad service or whatever,

seems you can't say anything bad of Thailand or a thai, and it doesn't necessarily have to be a review as it can just be a comment.  

This is so wrong in every way,  they are trying to tell a person he can only say good things here even if that's a lie.

 

 

Edited February 3 by steven100

[dpcjsr]

With all the bad press coming down about Thai Airways and now they are suing there own passengers...well I will NOT be flying with them any time soon. 

 

Clearly, there has been a change of management and it has been for the worse. 

[sirineou]

4 minutes ago, dpcjsr said:

Thai Airways and now they are suing there own passengers.

I have asked this question since this  thread started, "Has anyone seen what was posted "

and yet no one has said. "Yes here is a link"  I suspect that no one in this thread has, yet we all have strong opinions about what was posted, and what Thai air did.

What did Thai air do.

I propose that we don"t even know that. 

the title say  "Thai Airways sues over passenger’s flight diversion criticism "

Do we know if they sued?  The article says :

"They took legal action"  is sue the only legal action? are there intermediate steps before that occurs? 

Someone said that the person retracted the statement, If true, why is it not mentioned in the article, and even sued, would such case proceed if the person retracted the statement, and apologised. 

 

I suspect that Thai airways threatened to sue over the libelous statements  , and the karen at hand retracted and apologized, the this is the end of that story. But I could be wrong .

[Dionigi]

I think, if you make a contract with a company to convey you by air to a certain destination, on a particular type of aircraft, at a particular time, at a particular price, and arrive at another time, then any deviation from that schedule is a broken contract. I think Thai Airlines should be thankful that the only have complaints and not class action lawsuits.

[Highlandman]

13 hours ago, Expat Tom said:

I have lived here many years and the best advice that I can give any expat is to NEVER post anything critical

of a Thai hotel, restaurant, the government, the airlines, a bank , a business or anything! Be very careful online with even small gestures like giving a "Thumbs Up". It is a fact that a Thai citizen was convicted of a crime for giving a like to an online article critical of the Crown just a few years ago. Living in any country that is not your native home does NOT require you to become part of the culture and ADOPT it as your own. It DOES require you at learn about the culture and ADAPT to it. Nothing good will come from criticizing anything here, especially online. Thailand is known as the "LOS-aka, Land of Smiles". It should  also be known as the "Land of Fragile Egos".

 

If living here and ADAPTING to the culture is too burdensome for you then it should be obvious that airplanes fly in both directions. Unless came by boat or some land route, you came here by plane and a plane will take you somewhere else if you become too disenchanted to remain. To quote a line from the Wizard of Oz...."You are not in Kansas anymore Dorthey".

 

You can certainly leave by land. No one is forced to leave by air. Oftentimes, dissidents initially leave by land to say Cambodia, in order to "lay low" before figuring out how to proceed or where to go. It's safer to remain there for a few weeks than planning an exit from Thailand by air. Particularly Thais, who have difficulties obtaining visas to western countries, meanwhile they can easily get to Cambodia or Laos within a few hours by car from most parts of Thailand and enter those countries visa free. Once there, they can fly to other countries or try to claim asylum somewhere.

 

Regarding your advice about restrictions on speech in Thailand, you're very right. That being said, where people get in trouble is when they express their opinions using their real profiles on Facebook, Twitter etc. and someone makes a complaint. That's how it works. Merely making a comment that no one sees is not going to result in any enforcement action. 

 

Plenty of us criticize the government, airlines, hotels, anything Thai really on these sorts of forums without incident, but that's because we do so anonymously and our comments can be wiped by the forum administrators if they wish.

 

Otherwise every Tom, Dick and Harry calling the government a "junta" on Asean NOW, Bangkok Post etc would be in jail. It's not quite that bad.

 

In fact, i could name dozens of posters, based on their avatars on these two forums alone who criticize the government daily and have been doing so for years. They will continue posting away for years to come, likely without incident.

 

However, depending on who you're friends with on Facebook, an expletive laden post criticizing an airline such as Thai Airways, Bangkok Air or a hotel, bank or any Thai institution or individual, can land you in trouble. 

 

You're right about just liking the "wrong" article being a problem but only if it relates to the nation's highest institution and to be honest a simple like and no other interaction being punishable is a bit extreme. That stated, again, someone would have to "snitch" on you to the authorities for doing that and is what happened in the case you describe.

 

[Highlandman]

1 hour ago, Lopburikid said:

This is the part of the Lese  Majeste Law that the MFP wanted to abolish. It was only meant to protect the Royal family. The Junta extended to it that any criticism of the government could be classed as offensive and prosecute the individua. But now even a Thai restaurant, or a food stall can use it if they receive a bad review from a customer on social media.

 

This is the age of social media, with new laws that build on existing ones being introduced or enforced.

 

Are you saying there was no defamation law before 2014 that could be used to prosecute someone who made a complaint?

 

I'm quite sure even way back in 2008 for example, if you criticized a Thai company or individual and they made a complaint, you would have faced a lawsuit.

 

The difference now is that it's easier to do so with the proliferation of social media and all. It doesn't mean that such laws are new. They've simply adapted to the times. Moreover, social media was already in existence before the junta got into power. Certainly already in 2008, usage of Facebook was quite extensive.

[Highlandman]

29 minutes ago, Dionigi said:

I think, if you make a contract with a company to convey you by air to a certain destination, on a particular type of aircraft, at a particular time, at a particular price, and arrive at another time, then any deviation from that schedule is a broken contract. I think Thai Airlines should be thankful that the only have complaints and not class action lawsuits.

 

It's an operational issue. Of course THAI proceeded to bring the passengers from Sydney to Melbourne once the weather conditions improved.

 

Never heard of anyone successfully suing an airline for being a little inconvenienced. You're being ridiculous.

 

I would rather an airline land at their alternate sooner and wait until the weather clears before taking me to my original destination, than insisting on landing in low visibility and then crashing, as happened in the case of the Lao Airlines flight that crashed into the Mekong near Pakse on October 13, 2013, killing everyone on board when the pilot could have and should have diverted to Ubon Ratchathani, where the visibility was better. Yet he insisted on getting to the original airport regardless of the conditions (get there itis).

 

I noticed that during the latter part of the rainy season (and I think this happens EVERY rainy season) based on reviewing FlightRadar24 data, there are flights having to divert away from Suvarnabhumi or Don Muang due to heavy rain or storms over the airport and land at alternate airports.

 

Back in early October, this affected about 10 flights landing on a particular late afternoon/evening (that's when storms normally hit, which is why I don't fly in or out of Suvarnabhumi that time of year between the hours of around 3pm and 8pm). One EVA Air flight from Taipei diverted to Chiang Mai, then flew the passengers to Suvarnabhumi later that evening. An Air Asia flight from Nakorn Phanom to Don Muang turned around and landed in Khon Kaen. Other flights landed at U-Tapao before eventually flying their passengers to Suvarnabhumi or transporting them by bus. Personally, I'd rather they drive me from there to Suvarnabhumi than waiting hours for the flight to depart, given the short distance along the expressway to Suvarnabhumi. I can reach Suvarnabhumi from U-Tapao in 80 minutes by car.

[Highlandman]

1 hour ago, sirineou said:

I have asked this question since this  thread started, "Has anyone seen what was posted "

and yet no one has said. "Yes here is a link"  I suspect that no one in this thread has, yet we all have strong opinions about what was posted, and what Thai air did.

What did Thai air do.

I propose that we don"t even know that. 

the title say  "Thai Airways sues over passenger’s flight diversion criticism "

Do we know if they sued?  The article says :

"They took legal action"  is sue the only legal action? are there intermediate steps before that occurs? 

Someone said that the person retracted the statement, If true, why is it not mentioned in the article, and even sued, would such case proceed if the person retracted the statement, and apologised. 

 

I suspect that Thai airways threatened to sue over the libelous statements  , and the karen at hand retracted and apologized, the this is the end of that story. But I could be wrong .

 

I suspect they threatened to sue him after he removed his statement and apologized, just to make an example of him and because they can, Thailand having the world's strictest defamation laws. Not even in Communist countries is it this bad. One can criticize a Chinese airline and not face this level of legal action.

[Highlandman]

For anyone who follows aviation vloggers such as Josh Cahill in particular, you will have noticed how other airlines handle criticism. 

 

Malaysia Airlines and Qatar Airways have both reacted negatively to Josh's vlogs, by preventing him from traveling with them after the "offending" videos were released. They did not, to the best of my knowledge, threaten to sue him though and keep in mind Josh is way, way more famous than this Thai guy who nobody even heard of until he made his social media post. Josh's videos have been watched by millions on YouTube.

 

While both Malaysia Airlines and Qatar Airways reacted quite immaturely, at least they didn't go overboard in the way THAI has. Fortunately for Josh, his review of THAI wasn't negative enough for them to threaten him with legal action, but he should keep Thailand's defamation laws in mind next time he decides to travel on a Thailand registered airline and make a similar review to the ones that got him into trouble with Malaysian and Qatar.

[uttradit]

1 hour ago, steven100 said:

 

So what's the point in having hotel reviews,  or restaurant reviews,  if you get a terrible meal and tell the truth in your review your in big trouble, a crappy hotel, bad service or whatever,

seems you can't say anything bad of Thailand or a thai, and it doesn't necessarily have to be a review as it can just be a comment.  

This is so wrong in every way,  they are trying to tell a person he can only say good things here even if that's a lie.

 

 

Just do it outside the country or take photos and ask for a refund if hotel is bad. Bad restaurant give 3 stars say average.

[sometimewoodworker]

3 hours ago, Pouatchee said:

thanks you just made my case. untrained pilots... wow... thank you for that one

That is taking what I said totally out of context. There are no pilots trained to fly all aircraft. There are a huge number (the majority) of trained pilots who are not certified to land using CATIII 

3 hours ago, Pouatchee said:

so what do we do if or whose pilots who are not trained and certified to use it.   and a plane has to divert to somewhere else. gets there and the weather changed and is bad, or worse than the original destination?

great job dude.

You are demonstrating that you have no knowledge, not even cursory, of the way flights are planned. You really should know something about the subject before you make such false scenarios. 
Flights are planned with sufficient fuel to allow for division (usually with at least 2 alternatives) they also have radio so can get information from the airports along with PIREPs and information from the text message system.

They receive a weather briefing and will not fly if the weather has the strong likelihood of preventing landing at the destination airport along with the alternatives. So your examples are totally fatuous.

 

 

[Pouatchee]

4 minutes ago, sometimewoodworker said:

That is taking what I said totally out of context. There are no pilots trained to fly all aircraft. There are a huge number (the majority) of trained pilots who are not certified to land using CATIII 

 

and you think the skies are safe?

give it up... i did say you seem to know more than me about all the jargon now give it a rest. you are not proving anything here

[sometimewoodworker]

1 hour ago, Dionigi said:

I think, if you make a contract with a company to convey you by air to a certain destination, on a particular type of aircraft, at a particular time, at a particular price, and arrive at another time, then any deviation from that schedule is a broken contract.

You think wrongly, all tickets have wording that allows for delays, equipment changes and route changes, so no broken contract, just someone who doesn’t read the details of ticket sales.

[sometimewoodworker]

3 minutes ago, Pouatchee said:

 

and you think the skies are safe?

Is anywhere safe? However flying has the lowest number of incidents/accidents causing passenger injuries of any mode of transport. So safe? Yes.

 

6 minutes ago, Pouatchee said:

you are not proving anything here

I am giving reasons why you shouldn’t make unfounded claims, and why the claims are badly wrong. 
I have no problem with misstatements that when pointed out are corrected, but when they are compounded and reinforced, that is where I draw the line.

[ross163103]

Thai airways losing face, big problem with this in Thailand--and Asia in general.

[BKKBike09]

16 hours ago, richard_smith237 said:

Thats 20/20 hindsight...    At some point a decision has to be made... Hold for longer not knowing if the visibility will improve. Or divert while there is still enough fuel (+mandated safety margin).

 

I'm sure there are procedures in place for this - As the SQ and QF flights held and then (as you point out) landed in Sydney, I can only assume they had sufficient fuel to hold +sufficient fuel to divert (+mandated safety margin) and the visibility improved so they could land within regulations. 

 

It's not hindsight. The SQ and QF (and likely others) elected to hold and then continue on to Melbourne. None of us know why the TG flight elected to divert. Diversion isn't a lightly taken decision; adds considerably to airline costs, amongst other things.

 

Melbourne has a CAT IIIB ILS which allows for landing with a 75 metre RVR (Runway Visual Range - basically what you can see on the ground) and I believe 0 decision height.

 

Since Melbourne, being coastal, does have a propensity for fog, logically one would assume international flights going there would use CAT IIIB capable aircraft and suitably trained crews.

 

Also, as any pilot should know, fog often develops and dissipates pretty quickly. Morning fog (which this was) usually burns away pretty quickly. And indeed on that day, it did just that.

 

You can see from the WX data that visibility fell off quickly (from '9999' which is 10 km down to 1.5 km to 200 m at 7.30 am and then up to 1.2 km and 7 km by 8.30 am).

 

 

BTW - you keep referring to 'FAA' regs. Thailand actually operates under EASA (Europe - a complete PITA compared to FAA but that's a whole other topic), and Australia is CASA.

 

 

 

 

[BKKBike09]

17 hours ago, sometimewoodworker said:

You don’t say exactly what the airports ILS systems are and if they are CATIII airports along with the training of the pilots in using CATIII ILS along with if the planes are certified and equipped with the technology. In Canada, almost certainly the pilots didn’t nail, it the plane did and landed itself. In Thailand and Laos it’s very unlikely that the airports are equipped with the zero visibility technology because the virtually never need it. So uneducated much???

 

True. I looked it up and Melbourne has CAT IIIB with 75m RVR and 0 decision height, but only on one runway (16). So extended fog can cause a lot of problems with extended spacing for arrivals and departures.

 

Even if the plane / crew are CAT IIIB capable, landing is the easy part. Taxying to a gate in thick fog at a big airport is probably more stressful. Melbourne does have 'Follow Me' service I believe - basically a van that leads the way.  

 

 

[sikishrory]

This is odd in that the weather on that day appears clear according to weather records.

Also numerous planes taking off and landing during the time TG465 was scheduled to land at 7.20am

https://www.flightradar24.com/2024-01-28/07:15/20x/-37.68,144.84/13