THAI to reduce international and regional flights to cut costs

[arrowsdawdle]

Send the board directors in for attitude adjustment, if they don't fix there maintenance issues they wont be flying anywhere soon.

No worries, they can replace the planes with a submarine fleet.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

I remember taking Thai Air's Premium Economy service LAX to BKK about a decade ago... non stop... and it made for a long flight with no rest break midway...

The ticket back then was around $1300-$1400 if memory serves, a couple hundred more than regular other airline economy prices at the time. But I was traveling during the Christmas holidays, and didn't have a lot of choices. The flight was actually comfortable and the service was OK...I believe on a 777 at the time.

But as I said, that was a decade ago. And things with Thai Air certainly haven't gotten better since then.

I'll say one thing -- I wonder if a lot of Thai government and VIP types are going to be missing their freebie Thai Air flights to Los Angeles from now on??? Shopping in Beverly Hills, the beaches at Santa Monica and Malibu... Disneyland... But, perhaps the government will just pay directly instead for "study" trips, or they'll still be able to use their accumulated frequent flyer miles on other airlines for the trips...

[ovenman]

Wow... read onto the end of the Reuters report on their own site:

Thai Airways still has 50 routes that are either loss-making or have low returns, the company said in a statement on Sunday.

And that's with jet fuel at current prices???

A statement like that makes one wonder whether THAI actually has any lucrative routes and if so, what are they?

[Time Traveller]

THAI's BKK-LAX route was a loser from the get-go. They charged twice as much for the flight than any other carrier, with the only selling point being that it was a non-stop flight. It should have been scrapped years ago.

What are you talking about? There was no other carries doing direct flight to LAX. It should have been their most popular route. The only competition they had was the stopover flights thru other Asian countries.

Did they get greedy or what?

[Guest]

Wow... read onto the end of the Reuters report on their own site:

Thai Airways still has 50 routes that are either loss-making or have low returns, the company said in a statement on Sunday.

And that's with jet fuel at current prices???

A statement like that makes one wonder whether THAI actually has any lucrative routes and if so, what are they?

Really does n0t bode well for the future if they can not operate profitably now:

[Bangkok Barry]

Not only are THAI pulling out of the routes in this article, but they are dropping flights to South Africa, Spain and Moscow. During the summer they have reduced flights to London by half. Meanwhile, other airlines around the world are expanding. Tells you a lot, doesn't it.

[sprq]

TG 665.

yesterday, from Shanghai to Bangkok.

We stayed in the airplane waiting for 4 hours before it took of to Bangkok, only information been given 'Queing for departure".

Traveling economic class no option to charge phone (USB), bad service, bad food (dry bread, vegetable no taste, small wine glass, salad 7 small prawns no dressing or sauce) and after 4 hours on a full and hot airplane bad smell.

Should arrive 21:00 in Bangkok, arrived 01:10.

No smile for me yesterday, and not again.

I once had a similar waiting experience on THAI, two hours of waiting on the tarmac at Swampy with no information given to passengers as to the reason for the delay and its expected duration. Abysmal treatment of customers.

[sprq]

THAI's BKK-LAX route was a loser from the get-go. They charged twice as much for the flight than any other carrier, with the only selling point being that it was a non-stop flight. It should have been scrapped years ago.

But it's no longer nonstop... As the aircraft goes to Seoul for stop over

Ya... they cut the non-stop part of the LAX route some years back...

But more to the point, the ThaiPBS report says they're "reducing" service to Los Angeles.

But the subsequent Reuters report says they're eliminating service to LAX, and thus to the U.S., since that was their last U.S. route.

Reducing and eliminating aren't quite the same!!!

The report is riddled with English errors, which is pretty common for Thai PBS, which obviously has nobody with fluent enough English to do a good job of English reports. Even place names are wrong, such as Hyderabad written as Hyder Rabat!

[Lowriesuzanne]

I fly Thai Airways a lot. I don't see how any airline can function during a price war. They are nice to my puppy. $200 for a place in cargo... not on board. My return ticket is for Nov 15 and the cutbacks start in October. I don't know if I will have a flight. Delta is $1000 plus change RT LAX-BKK. Cheaper than my current booking at Thai Airways. How can China Air price the ticket at $777? Thai Airways should complain to the WTO. Selling space below the cost of production is dumping.

[fred Kubasa]

Higher fares then competition and yet losing money on BKK to L.A and S.F. ?

[elgordo38]

1400 people to fly to only one airport, LAX?

That's OK. It's not like there's a bunch of Asians in Los Angeles who want to fly to Bangkok.

5555

1,401 a nice round number. As the number is so precise maybe the people to be let go are ear marked already. Maybe by the time they get done chopping it will be only 1,397. Lets hope some top management is in the mix. Usually its good bye little guy and boss gets a raise for coming up with such a "progressive" idea. I am glad my piece has been removed from the chess board of life (Struggle hmm not really to make a living) I was never a knight or king or a knave only a lowly pawn. Just kept my head down for 30 years took a $50,000 buyout held my hand out and said thank you and asked "which way is the door" Sadly the job I was once proud of doing has disappeared sacrificed on the alter of austerity like so many good jobs. You cannot even use the word pawn in today's structured society. Workers are like ants now servicing the Queen of the colony in case you cannot relate to that it is BIG Business/government the twin evils.

Edited July 27, 2015 by elgordo38

[FarangKenStine]

1401 jobs lost.

I feel really bad for that final 1 person, whose job was almost spared ...

[gyrosman]

Bailing before they get banned, this is how they are going to get enough qualified staff, reduce the size ergo the need for so many they havnt got.

The FAA will be the first International agency to shut them down, since they cannot maintain the aircraft properly. so they decided to stop all traffic to america to "SAVE FACE"

ICAO also.

[mango66]

1400 jobs to lay off ?

No, they offer them to transfer to the HQ !

Have you been ever in that HQ ?

They hangig there around like dying flys, work like in africa on 55 degrees,

But attached food court, 50 to 100% more expensive that others,

is full of thai AW staff !!

and you wait and wait for your que !!

[GinBoy2]

As for the BKK-LAX service. Correct the non-stop was cancelled after they finally gave up on the A340-500, which was a absolute dog, but the only aircraft capable of the ultra long haul. The failure of that little adventure was the aircraft itself, even the esteemed SQ couldn't make the darn things profitable. I seem to recall SQ stating that 'break even' was only possible with a theoretical 110% load factor to the US. They even tried all Business Class before they finally threw in the towel.

So then we were left with the 777 service with a stop in Seoul. Trouble with that is it is horribly overpriced when compared to either China Airlines or EVA with a stop in Taipei, plus it was constantly late, doesn't fly every day and.....noI won't bleat on about the awful service versus either CI or EVA, that's a horse thats been flogged to death

[me313]

The best coach flight I have ever taken, (having flown around the world on many various airlines 4 times) has been on Thai Airways. I have not tried them all, but the flight from LAX to Bangkok a few years ago really made the onset of my trip very wonderful. In this light, I am saddened that one of the few airlines I had this opportunity to use did not smash me into a tiny seat where I had no leg room, pitted against people who, if I moved my elbow 2 inches would have gotten in the way of their elbows--

I remember curry duck and all the fruit and cheese I could eat and snacks and wine all night served, with ample space and the entire atmosphere was simply lovely.

Thank you Thai airways! Will miss your flights that were very well done.

[Basil B]

TA is is certainly on a downward spiral...

Share price fallen from 55.5 (October 2010) to 12.7 today

Even selling off surplus planes is going to be difficult with Airbus and Boeing in full production... who wants to buy second hand planes with a dodgy service history.

[Andrew65]

THAI's BKK-LAX route was a loser from the get-go. They charged twice as much for the flight than any other carrier, with the only selling point being that it was a non-stop flight. It should have been scrapped years ago.

THAT flight (BKK-LAX) actually WAS scrapped years ago. Here they're talking about the stopover route through Seoul.

Hmmm. 'Seems THAI and TAT have two different views of the Thai tourist market ... Lol. I know who I believe. Money talks.

I believe that the BKK-LAX direct route was flown with the A340-500. From what I can ascertain, seating capacity for this aircraft is only 215 PAX, thus making it uneconomical, especially on an 8278 mile flight.

[Guest]

TA is is certainly on a downward spiral...

Thai Airways 5 year.png

Share price fallen from 55.5 (October 2010) to 12.7 today

Even selling off surplus planes is going to be difficult with Airbus and Boeing in full production... who wants to buy second hand planes with a dodgy service history.

yes, and let's not pretend that others have not done much better in the same time period

(Thai verses Delta /// relative performance)

[tso310]

The Malaysians have brought in a German who has worked for a number of airlines in turning them around. He has no problem in making deep cuts to get them profitable and has the backing of the government. The Thais will never bring in a guy like this. Talk talk talk thats all you ever get.

[trainman34014]

The Malaysians have brought in a German who has worked for a number of airlines in turning them around. He has no problem in making deep cuts to get them profitable and has the backing of the government. The Thais will never bring in a guy like this. Talk talk talk thats all you ever get.

The main reason it will never happen is that such a man's first target would be all the Hi So freeloaders with several family members and 3000 kilo's of luggage. In a family that lives near me there is a Thai Pilot and he is consistently taking up to nine relatives on free flights all over the place with truck loads of luggage. Always first or business class and refuse to fly in Coach class. They spend all their time bragging about how they see the world for free.

[ThomasHOL]

As opposed to many other posters here I don’t feel that Thai is bad to fly with. I have used them almost exclusively for my flights to Thailand for the last 14 years. I fly from Copenhagen to Bangkok and in the past they used the 747-400 on that route and it was great because of the 34” seat pitch but was lacking in the IFE department. A few years ago they switched to their new Boeing 777-300ER only 32” seat pitch and a footrest that is a bit in the way but with modern IFE and full flat seats in Business.

Actually the CPH-BKK route have for many years had the best Premium Economy in the world as PE is seated in the Business class seats. But today they are pricing the PE seats quite high on a trip I just searched they are 750$ more expensive in PE than Qatar in Business, also and their bonus program has been devalued so upgrading to PE no longer makes much sense.

But the thing that I find really stupid is the way they price their tickets. Right now I’m searching for tickets for my Mother-in-law In November. The tickets are priced around 1000$ and Emirates charge 630$ on the same days. But if things goes as they usually do I expect the price to fall to around 700$ here in august. This is the pricing structure I have seen for many years for my flights in May. High price if I book early and then a couple of months before my travel date the prices drop. I know this as I travel the same days every year (I visit a tradeshow) but most people would just see the extremely high price and then book emirates. This leads Thai to flying planes that are far from full and on my last trip the plane was not even 1/3 full which was good for me as I had all 3 seats and could lie down :-). The funny thing is that on the return trip 10 days later the plane was fully booked.

[Chongalulu]

THAI's BKK-LAX route was a loser from the get-go. They charged twice as much for the flight than any other carrier, with the only selling point being that it was a non-stop flight. It should have been scrapped years ago.

But it's no longer nonstop... As the aircraft goes to Seoul for stop over

Ya... they cut the non-stop part of the LAX route some years back...

But more to the point, the ThaiPBS report says they're "reducing" service to Los Angeles.

But the subsequent Reuters report says they're eliminating service to LAX, and thus to the U.S., since that was their last U.S. route.

Reducing and eliminating aren't quite the same!!!

H

The report is riddled with English errors, which is pretty common for Thai PBS, which obviously has nobody with fluent enough English to do a good job of English reports. Even place names are wrong, such as Hyderabad written as Hyder Rabat!

Either way things are going from "Hyderabad " to "Hyderaworse"!

[tomyumchai]

thai air flys from LHR to BKK around 30 mins before or after the EVA flight, ive booked 40+ flights with EVA because in most cases they were HUNDREDS of pounds cheaper than thai and the last time i bothered to ask, thai were still using 747's.

747? ......nah!

....and just before posting this i phoned to check prices. EVA to BKK £515.....thai to BKK £745...... nah again.....but apparently they have a 777 now....wow!

[crazydrummerpauly]

It is usually considerably cheaper to fly from BKK to LHR [or most other 'western' cities] than it is the other way around. Go figure.

Maybe because due to global winds, journey-times are not the same in each direction.

[Andrew65]

thai air flys from LHR to BKK around 30 mins before or after the EVA flight, ive booked 40+ flights with EVA because in most cases they were HUNDREDS of pounds cheaper than thai and the last time i bothered to ask, thai were still using 747's.

747? ......nah!

....and just before posting this i phoned to check prices. EVA to BKK £515.....thai to BKK £745...... nah again.....but apparently they have a 777 now....wow!

The B777 takes an hour longer to get to London. The 747-400 is still the fastest, I once came from LHR to BKK in 10hr 15mins on a Thai 747-400, then again, is an hour each way worth 230 quid?!

[thesetat2013]

I seem to have be at a loss here the same as Thai air. I can understand my feeling of loss however if I recall correctly Thai airways was banned from adding flights until they have fixed the staffing problems and maintenance problems. They could still operate normal routes though if I am correct. My point is that why make all of these excuses about losing money and dropping flights? If I am correct they already lost a lot of passengers and flights because of the Faa and British and I believe Korea and Singapore. Also, I do understand how they can send some flights to Thai smile since those will only go to China and they don't care if a Thai flight crashes and kills hundreds of Thais. Maybe I am wrong in all my comment! Feed back to correct me would be helpful since I am at such a loss today

[Tomtomtom69]

Get that arrogant smile off the staff's face; introduce a tariff structure which is competitive and revamp the entire image.

Ever been to TG's Pattaya office without parking and waiting a solid 45 minutes to be served by a frustrated ticket agent?

One in ten flights is rescheduled, cancelled or the passenger (i.e. me) rerouted. The other local carriers are no better but operate at half the price.

Long haul: use Middle Eastern or even European carriers. Finnair, Air France or KLM - just to name three - take you to Europe in more modern planes with a proven safety record (no DCA waving alarming flags on security or safety) at upto half the price; presently around THB 25'000. All no frills but serving the purpose of taking you from A to B.

If they can do it I wonder why TG cannot do it. 25 years ago TG was the pride of Thailand - a very, very, very far cry from what it represents today.

Air France, no thanks. I wouldn't trust them after their 2009 accident while flying from Rio De Janeiro to Paris. Not to mention the Concorde crash in 2001, the 2005 runway overrun in Montreal, and if we go back to the 90s, the A320 incident at an airshow in Alsace. I don't think they have a very good safety record as far as European carriers go and THAI still has a good proven safety record that is much better than that of Air France, with no fatal incidents recorded since 1998 and indeed no fatal incidents on any long-haul aircraft recorded that I can recall.

Heading to Europe, I'll stick to THAI (or otherwise go for Singapore Airlines) as I'm a frequent flyer member of Royal Orchid Plus which is in Star Alliance. Middle Eastern carriers? They're not all what they claim to be. My uncle (a former long haul pilot for Swissair and then Swiss) was not very impressed with Emirates. So I think apart from price, liking/disliking airlines is a very subjective thing and my take is that THAI, despite their relatively high fares, which should be reduced, are not half bad. There may be better options, but don't go saying they are horrible either because they are not.

[Tomtomtom69]

THAI's BKK-LAX route was a loser from the get-go. They charged twice as much for the flight than any other carrier, with the only selling point being that it was a non-stop flight. It should have been scrapped years ago.

THAT flight (BKK-LAX) actually WAS scrapped years ago. Here they're talking about the stopover route through Seoul.

Hmmm. 'Seems THAI and TAT have two different views of the Thai tourist market ... Lol. I know who I believe. Money talks.

I believe that the BKK-LAX direct route was flown with the A340-500. From what I can ascertain, seating capacity for this aircraft is only 215 PAX, thus making it uneconomical, especially on an 8278 mile flight.

I believe the direct flight was scrapped around late 2011 or early 2012, because I booked two separate tickets from LAX to BKK for my girlfriend in December 2010, returning to the USA in January 2011 and then a second trip from May-June 2011 and she was on the A340-500, taking up to 18 hours from LAX to BKK and 14h50m in the reverse direction according to the schedule, although actual flying time might have been 16 hours vs. 14 hours or so on the way back. Still, I much prefer direct flights where possible and the end of the direct flight, not to mention the downgrading from daily flights down to just 4 flights a week made THAI an uneconomical choice compared to the competition. My girlfriend thus flew back to BKK after her stay in the USA came to an end in May 2012 on Singapore Airlines. At that time I think the non-stop THAI option had already been suspended.

[Tomtomtom69]

I'm scared. I depend on Thai Airways to transport me and my puppy from LAX-Seoul-BKK-Chiang Mai. Yes the trip is much too long but other Asian Airlines will not accept my puppy. They don't transport dogs anymore. The planes are packed. Not an empty seat. Los Angeles is the second biggest Thai city so I do not understand why they would shut down the route.

It will be the end of an era as they have been flying to LAX since 1980.

You are right, given that there are tens of thousands of Thais and Thai-Americans living in Los Angeles and surrounding areas, it makes little sense to shut down the route, especially given Thais are generally quite loyal to their country's businesses and compared to other Asian expats, tend to go back home more often and have more of a connection with home. This means flying back to Thailand is quite common.

THAI shot themselves in the foot though when they reduced frequency down from 7 flights per week down to just 4, in addition to adding the Seoul stopover. However, it isn't the stopover that's the problem, because no other airline (Thai or foreign) offers non-stop service between Thailand and the USA or indeed anywhere else in the Americas anyway. It's the low flight frequency coupled with somewhat higher fares compared to the competition.

While I don't know how to help you as I've never been in a similar situation before (never transported a puppy) have you tried contacting United Airlines, Singapore Airlines etc.? Both of these airlines fly to Thailand from the USA with a stopover or two, but obviously I can't say whether they will be able to help you.