Thai Smile Launches New Phuket Routes

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Thai Smile launches new Phuket routes

Phuket Gazette

Prasert Tanhansa, manager of the THAI district sales office in Phuket Town. Photo: Orawin Narabal

PHUKET: -- Thai Smile Air, the new regional sub-brand of Thai Airways International (THAI), will launch daily direct flight services from Phuket to Bangkok and Chiang Mai starting next month.

Prasert Tanhansa, manager of the THAI district sales office in Phuket Town, announced the new flights yesterday.

“We are going to start one daily round-trip from Phuket-Chiang Mai-Phuket and Phuket-Bangkok-Phuket on October 1,” said Mr Prasert.

The carriers main hub is Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok.

Eleven brand-new, 168-seat Airbus A320-200 aircraft would serve the carrier’s new destinations, he said.

Passenger on the “light-premium” carrier will have a choice of “Smile Plus” business class service or “Smile” economy class.

Special privilege for business class passengers include free seat selection, 25% extra mileage collection in THAI’s Royal Orchid Plus frequent flier program, 30kg baggage allowance, free light meal and beverages on board and access to airport lounges.

Passengers in economy will have a 20kg baggage allowance and a free in-flight snack.

He said the carrier’s target market would be younger fliers who are more budget conscious and who do not require the same level of service offered on THAI flights.

One-way economy fares from Phuket to Chiang Mai will be about 4,000 baht, while fares to Bangkok will be about 2,700 baht.

Source: http://www.phuketgaz...ticle16863.html

-- Phuket Gazette 2012-09-07

[madmitch]

Pushing all the low-cost airlines into Don Mueang to alleviate overcrowding at Suvarnabhumi, then allowing slots to Thai Airways' budget carrier is just wrong.

[yermanee]

Pushing all the low-cost airlines into Don Mueang to alleviate overcrowding at Suvarnabhumi, then allowing slots to Thai Airways' budget carrier is just wrong.

Air Asia switched to Don Muang because of financial incentives, it was their own choice. They could have stayed at Suwannapum if they had wanted. Thai smile filling the void is just good business.

Just my opinion.

Yermanee

[THAILIBAN]

@) madmitch

Despite being very busy, there was no shortage of slots at Swampy. New slots have been willingly offered to new budget carriers just in 2012 (such as SCOOT). as Yermanee (Ger-ma-nyyyyyy ???) said, it was AirAsia's own (wrong!) decision to make the move.

They will regret that though, as we will see on October 1st, which might create a big Chaos at DMK, as this airport is certainly NOT well prepared yet to handle AirAsia's traffic.

c) Yermanee

As mentioned, I agree with your opinion regarding AirAsia's decision.

Though I don't see "Smile filling the gap". They will just be replacing some of Thai's flight's, same as it happed with CNX, Udon etc.

I just checked their HKT - CNX flight, and THAI is ceasing to operate that route on the day SMILE takes over.

No additional capacity - it is less capacity than before !

Thai Smile only operates A320 aircraft, whereas THAI used plenty of ancient A300 (on that HKT-CNX route, for example), which accomodated 249 or 260 (depending on the configuration).

A 320 only seats 180 Pax, or 186 at most, if you are trying to give your PAX a sardine-can experience.

So the headline of the article should rather be:

"THAI AIRWAYS GROUP is dramatically reducing capacity on CNX-HKT route"

The price of 2.700 for BKK-HKT is nothing to rave about either - with Bangkok Air you can usually get a ticket on a great full-service Airline for no more than 2.500 THB, unless you book just a day before (but still even then sometimes), or unless it is peak season.

The only good thing is that you can earn THAI and StarAlliance Miles on SMILE DOMESTIC flights, as those even have a TG flight number

.

Edited September 7, 2012 by THAILIBAN

[yermanee]

@) madmitch

Despite being very busy, there was no shortage of slots at Swampy. New slots have been willingly offered to new budget carriers just in 2012 (such as SCOOT). as Yermanee (Ger-ma-nyyyyyy ???) said, it was AirAsia's own (wrong!) decision to make the move.

They will regret that though, as we will see on October 1st, which might create a big Chaos at DMK, as this airport is certainly NOT well prepared yet to handle AirAsia's traffic.

c) Yermanee

As mentioned, I agree with your opinion regarding AirAsia's decision.

Though I don't see "Smile filling the gap". They will just be replacing some of Thai's flight's, same as it happed with CNX, Udon etc.

I just checked their HKT - CNX flight, and THAI is ceasing to operate that route on the day SMILE takes over.

No additional capacity - it is less capacity than before !

Thai Smile only operates A320 aircraft, whereas THAI used plenty of ancient A300 (on that HKT-CNX route, for example), which accomodated 249 or 260 (depending on the configuration).

A 320 only seats 180 Pax, or 186 at most, if you are trying to give your PAX a sardine-can experience.

So the headline of the article should rather be:

"THAI AIRWAYS GROUP is dramatically reducing capacity on CNX-HKT route"

The price of 2.700 for BKK-HKT is nothing to rave about either - with Bangkok Air you can usually get a ticket on a great full-service Airline for no more than 2.500 THB, unless you book just a day before (but still even then sometimes), or unless it is peak season.

The only good thing is that you can earn THAI and StarAlliance Miles on SMILE DOMESTIC flights, as those even have a TG flight number

.

Thanks for the clarification.

Re " Yermanee " it's the way Thai's pronounce Germany which if found a bit funny.

Cheers

Yermanee

[terryp]

its not wrong at all !

Thai is the NATIONAL CARRIER..so must have the preferred hub for domestic service; some people just dont get it do they///// AA is a budget carrier NOT A NATIONAL Scheduled Carrier

Edited September 7, 2012 by terryp

[canopus1969]

its not wrong at all !

Thai is the NATIONAL CARRIER..so must have the preferred hub for domestic service; some people just dont get it do they///// AA is a budget carrier NOT A NATIONAL Scheduled Carrier

The post is about Thai Smile not Thai Airways !

[madmitch]

@) madmitch

Despite being very busy, there was no shortage of slots at Swampy. New slots have been willingly offered to new budget carriers just in 2012 (such as SCOOT). as Yermanee (Ger-ma-nyyyyyy ???) said, it was AirAsia's own (wrong!) decision to make the move.

They will regret that though, as we will see on October 1st, which might create a big Chaos at DMK, as this airport is certainly NOT well prepared yet to handle AirAsia's traffic.

c) Yermanee

As mentioned, I agree with your opinion regarding AirAsia's decision.

Though I don't see "Smile filling the gap". They will just be replacing some of Thai's flight's, same as it happed with CNX, Udon etc.

I just checked their HKT - CNX flight, and THAI is ceasing to operate that route on the day SMILE takes over.

No additional capacity - it is less capacity than before !

Thai Smile only operates A320 aircraft, whereas THAI used plenty of ancient A300 (on that HKT-CNX route, for example), which accomodated 249 or 260 (depending on the configuration).

A 320 only seats 180 Pax, or 186 at most, if you are trying to give your PAX a sardine-can experience.

So the headline of the article should rather be:

"THAI AIRWAYS GROUP is dramatically reducing capacity on CNX-HKT route"

The price of 2.700 for BKK-HKT is nothing to rave about either - with Bangkok Air you can usually get a ticket on a great full-service Airline for no more than 2.500 THB, unless you book just a day before (but still even then sometimes), or unless it is peak season.

The only good thing is that you can earn THAI and StarAlliance Miles on SMILE DOMESTIC flights, as those even have a TG flight number

.

Perhaps I should have put the word "pushing" in inverted commas.

But good post Thailiban. I haven't checked their prices and website and like you Bangkok Airways is my preferred carrier anyway, though my last flight to Don Mueang with Orient Thai was fine.

I think we'll see how this new airline pans out in a few months. And I would hate to have an FD coded international flight for October.

[Ricardo]

So Thai-Smile replaces Thai International, on the CNX-HKT route, and will even fly the return-leg, that's an improvement, although those prices (B4k one-way ?) don't sound very exciting, compared to Air Asia who are generally cheaper & serve the route twice-daily.

Such a pity that TG didn't do this ten-or-more years ago, when they had B737-400s to spare, and found that they couldn't fill a wide-body HKT-CNX, so just served the route one-way. They really do deserve the domestic-competition, which they now find themselves facing, let's hope that Thai-Smile will prove to be competitive !

[RubbaJohnny]

How did they manage a one way service sell the plane at the end of the single?

[Ricardo]

How did they manage a one way service sell the plane at the end of the single?

It flew/flies BKK-CNX-HKT-BKK.

We once used our airmiles, and a chunk of real-money for taxes/surcharges, for a CNX-HKT domestic-return on TG. They only took us as far as BKK, on the way back, before full-ticket costs were applied ! A 'return' that leaves you 350 miles short of where you started from ! TiT.