Thai Carriers Make World Rankings

[george]

Thai carriers make world rankings

Three Thai carriers _ Thai Airways International, Bangkok Airways and Nok Air _ were counted among the world's best airlines in 2005 in a survey involving more than 12 million passengers by the research firm Skytrax.

The recognition was the first for budget carrier Nok Air, and only the second for Bangkok Airways, which ranked first among Asian regional carriers.

But national carrier Thai Airways, traditionally ranked among the leading airlines in the world, saw its position fall from fifth last year to seventh for 2005 (see table).

THAI was also behind Malaysia Airlines and Singapore Airlines among best airlines in Southeast Asia. In that category, Malaysia Airlines placed first, Singapore Airlines second and THAI third.

THAI executives yesterday acknowledged the airline's fall in the rankings, but noted the survey was conducted before the airline implemented its 10-billion-baht makeover.

Sunathee Isvarphonchai, vice-president for public relations, expressed confidence that the airline would move up in the next Skytrax listing.

''We conceded that we were not as good as we would like to be. But things are changing now as we are able to remove constraints that bogged down our passenger improvement effort. We are in a much better position to compete with others now in terms of passengers appeal,'' she said.

Over the past several years, THAI has struggled unsuccessfully to regain past glory as one of the world's top three airlines. Budget constraints, internal politics, the lack of visionary management, poor staff morale and bureacracy have taken a toll on THAI's appeal to passengers, observers have said and written in recent years.

The airline has even downgraded its corporate objective, first from being ''one of the world's top-three airlines'' to ''one of the world's top-five airlines,'' and then to just ''the first choice carrier with the touch of Thai,'' the catchline that was introduced nearly two years ago when Thanong Bidaya, now commerce minister, was the airline chairman.

But the fact THAI has managed to stay in the Skytrax top 10 shows to many that the airline remains better than hundreds of others around the world.

For its part, Bangkok Airways kept its ranking as the best regional airline of Asia for the second consecutive year, ahead of Singapore's SilkAir and Air Macau.

M..L. Nandhika Varavarn, vice-president for corporate communications at Bangkok Airways, said the award reflected the airline's strategic positioning as ''Asia's Boutique Airline''.

Though it was set up slightly over a year ago, budget carrier Nok Air, owned partly by THAI, wound up third among low-fare airline in Asia, behind Malaysia's Air Asia and ValuAir of Singapore.

--Bangkok Post 2005-06-09