3 Airlines Cut Routes To Save Costs

[george]

3 Airlines cut routes to save costs

BANGKOK: -- Three low-cost airlines - Nok Air, One-Two-Go and Thai AirAsia - have cut and rescheduled flights in response to record-high jet fuel prices.

Effective yesterday, Nok Air cut three domestic routes - Bangkok-Chiang Rai, Bangkok-Ubon Ratchathani and Bangkok-Krabi. It is also considering reducing its 21 flights a week to Phuket.

Affected travellers are being transferred to Thai Airways International and Thai AirAsia.

The domestic route changes followed the cancellation of its international Bangkok-Bangalore and Bangkok-Hanoi flights.

"We're losing money," an airline representative said, who declined to confirm if losses were as high as Bt1 billion as had been reported. The reports have fuelled expectations that the airline would be shut down soon.

Meanwhile, One-Two-Go has cut the number of Bangkok-Chiang Mai and Bangkok-Phuket flights from 28 per week to 21, starting yesterday. The flight frequency to Hat Yai has also been cut by half to seven, while those to Chiang Rai and Nakhon Si Thammarat are down from seven to two flights per week. The daily flight to Surat Thani is to continue.

Thai AirAsia has cancelled the weekly flight to Xiamen, China, due to lack of passengers.

Tassapon Bijleveld, chief executive officer of Thai AirAsia, said operating costs had jumped from 30 per cent to 50 per cent due to spiking oil prices.

"However, we have no further plans to reduce or cut more flights," he said.

The airline planned to add more international routes from Bangkok to Hong Kong and Guangzhou, China, within the next two or three months. It is also studying scheduling flights to

Bali. The airline recently started flights to Jakarta and Ho Chi Minh City.

Thai AirAsia has increased its flights to Phuket and Chiang Mai. The airline expected the number of passengers to reach 4.6 million this year, a 25-per-cent growth rate.

To survive the lower passenger traffic due to higher travelling costs, the airline has approached 15 corporate clients to encourage more business travel.

To boost loyalty, the airline has launched a programme paying up to Bt1,800 to compensate passengers whose flights are delayed more than three hours.

-- The Nation 2008-07-02

Related Travel Link:

http://travel.thaivisa.com

[siam2007]

3 Airlines cut routes to save costs

BANGKOK: -- Three low-cost airlines - Nok Air, One-Two-Go and Thai AirAsia - have cut and rescheduled flights in response to record-high jet fuel prices.

Effective yesterday, Nok Air cut three domestic routes - Bangkok-Chiang Rai, Bangkok-Ubon Ratchathani and Bangkok-Krabi. It is also considering reducing its 21 flights a week to Phuket.

Affected travellers are being transferred to Thai Airways International and Thai AirAsia.

The domestic route changes followed the cancellation of its international Bangkok-Bangalore and Bangkok-Hanoi flights.

"We're losing money," an airline representative said, who declined to confirm if losses were as high as Bt1 billion as had been reported. The reports have fuelled expectations that the airline would be shut down soon.

Meanwhile, One-Two-Go has cut the number of Bangkok-Chiang Mai and Bangkok-Phuket flights from 28 per week to 21, starting yesterday. The flight frequency to Hat Yai has also been cut by half to seven, while those to Chiang Rai and Nakhon Si Thammarat are down from seven to two flights per week. The daily flight to Surat Thani is to continue.

Thai AirAsia has cancelled the weekly flight to Xiamen, China, due to lack of passengers.

Tassapon Bijleveld, chief executive officer of Thai AirAsia, said operating costs had jumped from 30 per cent to 50 per cent due to spiking oil prices.

"However, we have no further plans to reduce or cut more flights," he said.

The airline planned to add more international routes from Bangkok to Hong Kong and Guangzhou, China, within the next two or three months. It is also studying scheduling flights to

Bali. The airline recently started flights to Jakarta and Ho Chi Minh City.

Thai AirAsia has increased its flights to Phuket and Chiang Mai. The airline expected the number of passengers to reach 4.6 million this year, a 25-per-cent growth rate.

To survive the lower passenger traffic due to higher travelling costs, the airline has approached 15 corporate clients to encourage more business travel.

To boost loyalty, the airline has launched a programme paying up to Bt1,800 to compensate passengers whose flights are delayed more than three hours.

-- The Nation 2008-07-02

Related Travel Link:

http://travel.thaivisa.com

the headline is a bit missleading, because actually only NOK and 1-2-GO cut routes.

AirAsia doesnt cut any domestic route, and the XIAMEN flight has been cancelled a LONG LONG time ago (February, me thinks).

but instead of Xiamen, they will add a lot of other new destinations (for example, GUANGZHOU).

its a normal thing for any airline in the world to stop serving a specific destination, if the response from passengers isnt as expected. that has nothing to do with cutting flights due to high fuel costs.

AirAsia had tested a lot of destinations ex-BKK. if they are successfull, they will be running for a long time, if not, they will disappear sooner or later (for example BKK-Langkawi or BKK - Kota Kinabalu, which is both a pity!).

I assume that the next route to be axed will be BKK - Johor Bahru (but that one is being served by the Malaysian AirAsia, as the smart ThaiAirAsia wasnt much interested in it....).

of course these news are not really encouraging for the tourism industry in Krabi (already suffering from international flight-cuts) and Chiang Rai..... but there certainly was an oversupply of domestic flights.....

still cant believe that i was on an BangkokAirways flight few days ago, and even they are the CHEAPEST on that route (CNX - BKK, was 1420 baht and now, after 1st of July, is 1620 Baht after fuel-surcharge-increase ), the plane was less than 25% full. or maybe just bad marketing ?

[catmac]

Tend to agree with Siam2007, ThaiAirAsia seem to be winning hands down from all this, perhaps because they had the good sense to stick with Suvamabhumi and captured all the International transit passengers.

I'm flying down with them in September from CNX, then on to the UK - do I need the hassle of transfering from Don Muang? No way! Thai quoted me over 4000Bht return for the only flight that connected reasonably from their sparse BKK schedule, Air Asia did me a return from their comprehensive schedule for just 1800Bht all in!

Nok Air is as good as dead (see the thread on them!), 1-2-Go is still suffering from the Phuket tragedy (see the thread on that!) and I don't hold out much hope for their survival.

[Jefferson]

still cant believe that i was on an BangkokAirways flight few days ago, and even they are the CHEAPEST on that route (CNX - BKK, was 1420 baht and now, after 1st of July, is 1620 Baht after fuel-surcharge-increase ), the plane was less than 25% full. or maybe just bad marketing ?

Umm, for a one-way CNX-BKK I get a cool 3,020 baht including all charges, no matter if it's next Tuesday or a Tuesday 3 months from now.

Also I better be able to fly at 19:05 in the evening, as there's just one flight a day.

Bad marketing huh? I think there's nothing wrong with their marketing.

[cclub75]

Even the biggest, and best managed, airlines start to suffer.

July 2 (Bloomberg) --Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd., Hong Kong's largest airline, fell the most in more than six years after the company said earnings will be ``disappointing'' as the price of fuel trades near a record high.

The company's shares dropped as much as 7.8 percent to HK$13.70 and traded at HK$13.94 as of 2:37 p.m. in the city. It was the biggest decline since October 2001.

Cathay Pacific said the spot price for jet fuel is 93 percent higher than the average of what the company paid last year. The Hong Kong-based carrier and other airlines have raised surcharges, hedged fuel and ordered more efficient planes in response to record jet kerosene prices.

So do you seriously believe than Nok Air, Air Asia and the all others... are going to be okay ?

[astral]

This is all to do with un-economic routes.

At this time of year the number of passengers flying into SE Asia from the Gulf and Europe

is at a peak and seats are very difficult to find.

[b19bry]

"1-2-Go is still suffering from the Phuket tragedy (see the thread on that!) and I don't hold out much hope for their survival."

As well they should, and let's hope they don't !

The more routes they cut the better and safer for all of us !