Ubon To Phuket Flight Route Cancelled

[ubonrthai]

Air Asia has cancelled direct flights from Ubon to Phuket as of October 2. I already have a flight booked for December and was calling to buy an extra ticket for a friend over the phone. That's when they informed me of the route cancellation 16 days after it had already been cancelled. I'm really ticked because I already have an entire vacation budgeted and reserved and Air Asia won't re-route me through Bangkok. "You get refund. Just go buy new ticket." Yeah for twice the price...

[ubonrthai]

http://www.phuketgazette.net/articles/2012/AirAsia-move-to-axe-Phuket-Bali-Ubon-flights-sparks-ire-from-stranded-travellers-18031.html

[ubonrthai]

I called the English call center in Thailand twice trying to get them to re-route and finally just took the refund. My wife called the Thai call center after I had already agreed to the refund and yelled at them and they are now re-routing us through Bangkok instead for free. Get a tough Thai woman to call and be persistent I guess...

[MeMock]

16 days? Wow - that is really bad. I tweeted about this cancellation of service about three weeks ago and had also read it in a few publications since then. Still no excuse at all for them not letting you know prior to the media finding out, plus then waiting an extra 16 days. Disgraceful.

[ubonrthai]

The only reason I found out was because I wanted another ticket. Who knows when or if we would have found out.

[DreamRider]

This is horrible news; oh well, that's no-more Phuket for me then for a while. Sympathies for those who suffered from AA's mis-communication.

I think it comes as a direct result of them sponsoring a less-than-mediocre EPL team containing idiots like Anton Ferdinand.

[dreaming]

I got caught going the other way - phuket to ubon. It was in September though - around the 15th. Got to the airport in phuket and was told no flight. They didn't even email me - just said they tried to ring the phone number I gave them (my aussie number). Was told at the airport there wasn't enough passengers for the plane to go.

I had to buy phuket - bangkok,bangkok-ubon for me and my GF on thai as air asia was full from bangkok to ubon.. Cost me 11,000 baht

[SantiSuk]

Sad but inevitable I guess - not enough traffic. I can't complain, kept meaning to fly down there but never got round to it. Guess the hub airport concept is dead now.

Is Chiang Mai also dead? I have used that and the plane was about half full.

Air Asia should look at doing domestic 'fly through' discounts using two connecting flights. They should not assume that we will all just buy two tickets - i would have taken family of four on the plane to Phuket direct, but would now revert to previous practise of driving in preference to a double-leg journey. It won't happen as AA probably can fill its planes from BKK tp Phuket anyway.

[songhklasid]

Interseting, They certainly don't give much notice, I hope the CNX-UBP route fares better, or as santisuk suggested fly thru discounts with reasonable connection times, I have to admit now it's all at don muang things are more convenient, Is the CNX-UBP route well patronised ? every flight I caught in the last month both AA & NOK (all from or to BKK) were full.

regards songhklasid

[SantiSuk]

I flew Thai Airways to and from BKK last week. It being a snap holiday decision, I booked only one day ahead of the outbound flight. Unusually Thai was 10% cheaper than AA and Nok - probably because those two airlines were close to sell-out. The service was only 70% full each way. Something tells me Thai doesn't have the same progressive algorithms for pricing as AA and haven't even borrowed the ones from their daughter company Nok.

[MeMock]

Plus Thai charge half price for kids so when I am flying with the family it is almost always cheaper with Thai or at least the same price but better luggage allowance and they fly from swampy.

[SantiSuk]

Plus Thai charge half price for kids so when I am flying with the family it is almost always cheaper with Thai or at least the same price but better luggage allowance and they fly from swampy.

Aha - that's why it was cheaper for me then too!

[IsaanUSA]

Sad but inevitable I guess - not enough traffic. I can't complain, kept meaning to fly down there but never got round to it. Guess the hub airport concept is dead now.

It would be the opposite. It sounds like they are trying to strengthen the hub and spoke concept.

[SantiSuk]

Sad but inevitable I guess - not enough traffic. I can't complain, kept meaning to fly down there but never got round to it. Guess the hub airport concept is dead now.

It would be the opposite. It sounds like they are trying to strengthen the hub and spoke concept.

That was a reference to some article 6 months or so ago trumpeting Ubon as a potential hub for flights within Issaan and beyond. Unfortunately Thailand seems incapable of breaking out of a capital-centric economy. I cant think of another 50 m plus population country in the world whose second city is so small

[David Peters]

Sad but inevitable I guess - not enough traffic. I can't complain, kept meaning to fly down there but never got round to it. Guess the hub airport concept is dead now.

It would be the opposite. It sounds like they are trying to strengthen the hub and spoke concept.

That was a reference to some article 6 months or so ago trumpeting Ubon as a potential hub for flights within Issaan and beyond. Unfortunately Thailand seems incapable of breaking out of a capital-centric economy. I cant think of another 50 m plus population country in the world whose second city is so small

What about Mexico? Population of 130 million. Mexico city has nearly 10 million people. Maybe more. No other city in Mexico has more than 2 million people.

[SantiSuk]

Sad but inevitable I guess - not enough traffic. I can't complain, kept meaning to fly down there but never got round to it. Guess the hub airport concept is dead now.

It would be the opposite. It sounds like they are trying to strengthen the hub and spoke concept.

That was a reference to some article 6 months or so ago trumpeting Ubon as a potential hub for flights within Issaan and beyond. Unfortunately Thailand seems incapable of breaking out of a capital-centric economy. I cant think of another 50 m plus population country in the world whose second city is so small

What about Mexico? Population of 130 million. Mexico city has nearly 10 million people. Maybe more. No other city in Mexico has more than 2 million people.

Yes, but Thailand's second city has only quarter of a million and that's counting the conurbation (of Chiang Mai), not the official town population, David!

I could use town population stats and get that second city stat down to a ridiculously low 150,000-175,000 with CM. Khorat, Udon, Ubon, Surat, KK, maybe Rayong, maybe Patts (any others?) falling in that bracket.

Roughly a quarter of the Thai population lives in the conurbation of Bangkok, another indicator of over-concemtration (though I guess without looking that Japan may also be close to meeting that particular criteria)

[David Peters]

New Zealand's population is 1.4 million. 1.4 million live in Auckland. But you only want countries with a population greater than 50 million so NZ doesn't apply.

The population of Ubon province is nearly 2 million, though official statistics state 1.7 million. I think that with Ubon city and Warin combined, the urban population could be close to 500,000, if not more. What do you think?

[Sandgroper1066]

As of 2006 (obviously higher now) the Ubon urban area,including Warin,had a population of approx 200,000.

Cheers

[SantiSuk]

New Zealand's population is 1.4 million. 1.4 million live in Auckland. But you only want countries with a population greater than 50 million so NZ doesn't apply.

The population of Ubon province is nearly 2 million, though official statistics state 1.7 million. I think that with Ubon city and Warin combined, the urban population could be close to 500,000, if not more. What do you think?

I'm guessing the first 1.4 million is a typo, as you just wiped out an entire South Island, not to mention at least 3 other north island cities!

Edited November 6, 2012 by SantiSuk

[David Peters]

Yes a typo. 4.4 million is NZ's population of which 1.4 million live in and around Auckland.