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THAI suffers income loss due to political factor


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THAI suffers income loss due to political factor

BANGKOK, 16 May 2014 (NNT) – Thai Airways International Plc (THAI) has conceded that the ongoing political turmoil is affecting the airline’s performance as a revenue loss of over 2 billion baht was seen in the first quarter.


Air Chief Marshal Prajin Juntong, in his capacity as chairman of THAI’s board of directors, stated that the political unrest in Thailand had turned away foreign visitors, causing arrivals to drop 17%. Significant decreases have been recorded in the numbers of travelers from China, Japan, South Korea and ASEAN, all of which are considered major markets for Thai tourism.

The chairman added that the passenger number of THAI shrank 12.6 percent in the first quarter while the cabin factor decreased to 70 percent from 79 percent in the same period last year. As a consequence, the airline was operating at a loss of 2.6 billion baht, as opposed to last year’s profit of 8.3 billion baht.

For the second quarter, ACM Prajin admitted that the national flag carrier would likely face a revenue loss of no less than the one in the previous quarter. He reasoned that ticket reservations had yet to rebound while no clarity was expected on the political front at the moment. The chairman was even less optimistic about the third quarter as it would be the low season when the smallest number of passengers of the year would be seen.

Nonetheless, ACM Prajin revealed that THAI was adjusting its marketing strategy to boost ticket sales and was looking to partner up with THAI Smile Air and Nok Air to raise their competitiveness against foreign carriers.

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-- TNA 2014-05-16

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Thai Smile and Nok Air are purely domestic carriers how how would a partnership with these airlines improve THAI's competitiveness against foreign airlines?

Or will we soon be seeing the aforementioned airlines operating on the short haul international flights, offering cheaper fares than THAI but codesharing, so Thai are not seen to be cutting their fares?

This quarter, THAI has a ready-made excuse. Maybe this will be ongoing.

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Thai Smile and Nok Air are purely domestic carriers how how would a partnership with these airlines improve THAI's competitiveness against foreign airlines?

Or will we soon be seeing the aforementioned airlines operating on the short haul international flights, offering cheaper fares than THAI but codesharing, so Thai are not seen to be cutting their fares?

This quarter, THAI has a ready-made excuse. Maybe this will be ongoing.

Simple, it wouldn't......cheesy.gifcheesy.gifcheesy.gif

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Thai Smile and Nok Air are purely domestic carriers how how would a partnership with these airlines improve THAI's competitiveness against foreign airlines?

Or will we soon be seeing the aforementioned airlines operating on the short haul international flights, offering cheaper fares than THAI but codesharing, so Thai are not seen to be cutting their fares?

This quarter, THAI has a ready-made excuse. Maybe this will be ongoing.

Thai Smile has been flying international "leisure" routes for some time now. Destinations serviced are Delhi, Colombo, Macau, Vientiane, Phnomh Penh and Colombo. I anticipate that additional Thai International routes will be handed over to Thai Smile as more equipment is transferred.

A quick comparison of the fares on those routes show that the non stop flights are competitively priced. For example, Thai Smile is a slightly less expensive than Air India. Sir Lankan Airways is less expensive because it is not non stop. On the direct Colombo route, the Thai Smile fare is competitive if booked through an agency with a volume discount and only slightly more expensive than Sri Lankan Airways if booked direct from Thai Smile.

The business decision is to split the leisure cost sensitive routes off from TG mainline. This is the exact same model being used by Air Canada and its Rouge operation and Singapore Airlines with its Scoot operation.

As an aside, Rouge has met with some of the most negative comments I have read on the various pax feedback sites such as Skytrax. It is followed by Scoot. Few complaints about Thai Smile. This may due to the pax already having experience with LCCs whereas, Air Canada's roll out of forced transfers of unsuspecting pax to Rouge has not been well received. Scoot and Rouge have not been getting good press.

Edited by geriatrickid
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