Bkk - Dub Ireland

[curlywatt]

Hi folks, does anyone think there will be a direct flight to Ireland in the near future ? There is direct flights to most European cities. I'd love the convenience of not having to stop and change planes

[beano2274]

Only if Thai airways did it, as all the others would stop over somewhere.

[Ricardo]

Unlikely, it will IMO continue to be one-stop to change planes, often in the Gulf but possibly CDG/FRA/BRU/AMS etcetera.

You simply wouldn't get commercial load-factors on DUB-BKK/DUB direct, unless it's a very-well-subscribed holiday-charter, on something like a (medium-sized & long-range) B787.

I'd suspect that even the (much bigger) UK-Thailand winter-holiday market has trouble finding sufficient demand, except out of MAN/London, and HKT would be more-popular than BKK at that.

[fatbastard68]

Ethihad airways and I think one other middle-eastern fly direct to Dublin

[curlywatt]

Ethihad airways and I think one other middle-eastern fly direct to Dublin

With Etihad you have a stop over in Abu Dhabi

[UbonOz]

I think there is some confusion over "direct" and "connect".

Connect means you will stop and change aircraft on the journey to your destination. Many airlines connect to Dublin from BKK.

Direct means you do not stop on the journey to your destination. Dublin has no direct(non-stop) flights from BKK.

[flightcrew1]

Working for Etihad I often get the Dublin flights from Abu Dhabi. We have two a day. We have about 15 different flights both morning and evening and connecting to these flights and the average amount of passengers connecting to Dublin is about 30 to 40 from Bangkok.

I don't see a non stop from any airline in the near future to Dublin.

[curlywatt]

Working for Etihad I often get the Dublin flights from Abu Dhabi. We have two a day. We have about 15 different flights both morning and evening and connecting to these flights and the average amount of passengers connecting to Dublin is about 30 to 40 from Bangkok.

I don't see a non stop from any airline in the near future to Dublin.

Probably conclusive flightcrew, but if there were 40 every day on Etihad, Emirates, BA, Air France, Lufthansa, KLM, Quantas, Thai Airways, Swiss Air, China Airlines, etc...... If priced right do you not think they could fill 1 flight per day, also young Irish going to Australia have to take minimum 3 flights unless they go through the UAE, there's huge numbers heading to Australia and stopping in Thailand and surrounding countries for a month or so, I honestly think it would be commercially viable. By the way any chance of an upgrade next time I use Etihad (joking)

Edited January 22, 2013 by curlywatt

[irishken]

Working for Etihad I often get the Dublin flights from Abu Dhabi. We have two a day. We have about 15 different flights both morning and evening and connecting to these flights and the average amount of passengers connecting to Dublin is about 30 to 40 from Bangkok.

I don't see a non stop from any airline in the near future to Dublin.

Probably conclusive flightcrew, but if there were 40 every day on Etihad, Emirates, BA, Air France, Lufthansa, KLM, Quantas, Thai Airways, Swiss Air, China Airlines, etc...... If priced right do you not think they could fill 1 flight per day, also young Irish going to Australia have to take minimum 3 flights unless they go through the UAE, there's huge numbers heading to Australia and stopping in Thailand and surrounding countries for a month or so, I honestly think it would be commercially viable. By the way any chance of an upgrade next time I use Etihad (joking)

you hit the nail on the head there saying if the price is right and for some reason i doubt it will be. with etihad at the moment, flights to bkk from dub are fairly expensive compared to flight to elsewhere in asia. they are taking advantage of the fact that many young irish are heading to aus and stopping off in thailand. etihads special offer to thailand now is 768 euro while you can get it with turkish airlines for about 630

[flightcrew1]

Working for Etihad I often get the Dublin flights from Abu Dhabi. We have two a day. We have about 15 different flights both morning and evening and connecting to these flights and the average amount of passengers connecting to Dublin is about 30 to 40 from Bangkok.

I don't see a non stop from any airline in the near future to Dublin.

Probably conclusive flightcrew, but if there were 40 every day on Etihad, Emirates, BA, Air France, Lufthansa, KLM, Quantas, Thai Airways, Swiss Air, China Airlines, etc...... If priced right do you not think they could fill 1 flight per day, also young Irish going to Australia have to take minimum 3 flights unless they go through the UAE, there's huge numbers heading to Australia and stopping in Thailand and surrounding countries for a month or so, I honestly think it would be commercially viable. By the way any chance of an upgrade next time I use Etihad (joking)

you hit the nail on the head there saying if the price is right and for some reason i doubt it will be. with etihad at the moment, flights to bkk from dub are fairly expensive compared to flight to elsewhere in asia. they are taking advantage of the fact that many young irish are heading to aus and stopping off in thailand. etihads special offer to thailand now is 768 euro while you can get it with turkish airlines for about 630

Where's Williaminbkk?? He knows more about this than I do as he was airline management. Even if Etihad or Emirates, Finnair or whoever wanted to fly non stop from Bangkok to Dublin or Singapore to Dublin they would have to have the permission of both of those governments involved. Example Etihad is from UAE so they are allowed to fly from Abu Dhabi to Dublin nonstop as Abu Dhabi is the home city. But to fly nonstop between two countries that they are not based out of is near impossible. Not completely impossible but near. On the other hand if Thai Airways wanted to fly non stop from BKK to DUB this would be allowed as Aer Lingus would also be allowed to fly non stop. This all has to do with "Air Freedom Rights"

Many years ago I worked for an airline called UTA and we flew from Paris to San Francisco and continuing on to Honolulu. Though the majority of the passengers got off in San Francisco we continued on to Honolulu with a half empty aircraft as we were unable to sell tickets on that sector.

[beano2274]

Good post above by Flightcrew, that is why I said about Thai airways as it is gonna be the only one who will fly direct and without a layover anywhere.

[Ricardo]

Working for Etihad I often get the Dublin flights from Abu Dhabi. We have two a day. We have about 15 different flights both morning and evening and connecting to these flights and the average amount of passengers connecting to Dublin is about 30 to 40 from Bangkok.

I don't see a non stop from any airline in the near future to Dublin.

Probably conclusive flightcrew, but if there were 40 every day on Etihad, Emirates, BA, Air France, Lufthansa, KLM, Quantas, Thai Airways, Swiss Air, China Airlines, etc...... If priced right do you not think they could fill 1 flight per day, also young Irish going to Australia have to take minimum 3 flights unless they go through the UAE, there's huge numbers heading to Australia and stopping in Thailand and surrounding countries for a month or so, I honestly think it would be commercially viable. By the way any chance of an upgrade next time I use Etihad (joking)

A couple of further comments :-

If you got 40 every day (or per twice-daily flight ?) on Etihad, which I suspect is one of the lowest-cost/better-connecting options, then the other more-expensive/worse-connecting alternatives would perhaps tend to have fewer passengers than Etihad. It wouldn't be an even distribution, because people do tend to choose cheaper-flights, or better-connections.

There may well be websites which estimate total-traffic figures, with adjustments for seasonal-variations, between city-pairs like this, sadly we never had these tools in my own time at Britannia Airways (formerly the world's biggest charter-carrier), so I can't just point you at them. Can another more-current poster perhaps help ? Or perhaps the TAT-statistics would show how many people arrive from Dublin/Eire each year ?

Don't forget there would also be at least some traffic going the other way, Thailand-origin travellers, who might also use this hypothetical direct-service between Dublin & Bangkok. We have an Irish friend living here in Chiang Mai for example, who goes home every few years, there might also be students going over to study or workers for Thai restaurants ? These things add up ... there are many reasons for travelling !

I think its safe to say that the future will generally include more lower-volume long-haul city-pairs, which the B787 is ideal for, as well as more medium-haul higher-volume routes, which the Airbus A380 is aimed at. Boeing and Airbus study trends and future-market projections in air-travel very carefully, before they design/fund/build/launch a new long-haul aircraft. They're the real experts.

Ultimately it is the commercial-success of a route, which determines whether it's ever launched or sustained, and I suspect hub-and-spoke is the more-likely ongoing-solution for this particular city-pair. So expect to continue to have to change planes once, somewhere along the way, between Dublin & Bangkok. It's not such bad news, the opportunity to stretch your legs can be welcome, on such a long flight !

Edited January 23, 2013 by Ricardo

[Ciaran Mc]

Ethihad airways and I think one other middle-eastern fly direct to Dublin

With Etihad you have a stop over in Abu Dhabi

u do have a stopover ... but i find Etihad a top notch airline and usually fly the bkk-abu dhabi-dub route ... i actually appreciate the chance to stretch my legs for a while after being sat in an airplane for more than 6 hours.

also stopovers with Etihad tend to be relatively short !!

[irishken]

Ethihad airways and I think one other middle-eastern fly direct to Dublin

With Etihad you have a stop over in Abu Dhabi

u do have a stopover ... but i find Etihad a top notch airline and usually fly the bkk-abu dhabi-dub route ... i actually appreciate the chance to stretch my legs for a while after being sat in an airplane for more than 6 hours.

also stopovers with Etihad tend to be relatively short !!

agree with you there. etihad get some stick on the forums and haven't really got a high rating on airline reviews but i have always found them to be good. as you said the stopover is short and abu dhabi airport isn't to bad. also on the dub - abu dhabi route you can get lucky with lots of empty seats and gives you a chance to stretch out

[curlywatt]

Ethihad airways and I think one other middle-eastern fly direct to Dublin

With Etihad you have a stop over in Abu Dhabi

u do have a stopover ... but i find Etihad a top notch airline and usually fly the bkk-abu dhabi-dub route ... i actually appreciate the chance to stretch my legs for a while after being sat in an airplane for more than 6 hours.

also stopovers with Etihad tend to be relatively short !!

agree with you there. etihad get some stick on the forums and haven't really got a high rating on airline reviews but i have always found them to be good. as you said the stopover is short and abu dhabi airport isn't to bad. also on the dub - abu dhabi route you can get lucky with lots of empty seats and gives you a chance to stretch out

I like Etihad also but am here this time with BA, departed Dublin 12th for a month at 700 euro, Etihad were just over 1000 around these dates with 1 stop over, with 2 stop overs incl. Manchester was around 900 euro, I would have paid a little extra because as I said I like Etihad but not 300 euro extra, also it annoys we when checking flights with Etihad that taking 3 flights is cheaper than taking the 2 flights (maybe not always the case, might be due to time of the year)