According to the Bangkok Post, Nok Air pilots staged a strike yesterday, stranding thousands at DMK. Today, they fired one pilot and suspended two others, pending investigation.

If you have a ticket on Nok Air this week, you may want to get to the airport well in advance of your flight.

The question begging an answer is why did they go strike?

Reportedly some (9) wanted to be able to be classified as executives as well as pilots. The CEO had determined that they should decide whether they want to be management or grunts that fly planes. A very Thai-oriented status debate I suspect. There's also something linked in there to do with training of pilots and their lack of capability but I didn't fully understand my wife's explanation of the u-tube interview with the pilots 'ringleader' and NOK's CEO (who looks and dresses like a coffee barista!)

Was not aware of the probs when I pitched up to do a day trip from Ubon to the capital on NOK yesterday (UK visa for Thai daughter). No apparent scheduling problems on the NOK network at either airport. I noticed that the NOK section of DMK departures was deserted compared to long-looong lines in the Thai Lion bit (what people will do to save 100 baht!)

Capability of plane jocks here in Thailand continues to be a worry. I first got concerned in the early days of Lion Air in early Summer last year (at least it was early in that it was a sudden appearnace of a tripling of flights on our local Ubon to BKK route). My first return flight gave me successive landings at DMK and UBP that were clearly inept even to my inexpert bottom. It prompted me to post on an Ubon ThaiV thread that maybe we should worry about where all the pilots are coming from to fuel this massively increased schedule in Thailand of the last 3 years. Two months later we learned that regulators from the developed world were lambasting Thai aviation for undisclosed reasons that are increasingly looking like serious training/capability issues.

Oh well - air travel is just as unsafe now as buses it appears. Oh and the landing at Ubon last night (by one of a previously exemplary NOK air compliment of pilots on the route) was rough as $hite. He bounced the bu$$er before giving it a couple of swerves (can't recall having bounced so noticeably before with a modern jet in a lifetime of frequent flying - swerves are common and I can recall small island-hop prop stuff bouncing of course), but 10 foot bounces on a 737??. I was thankful that Ubon has a long runway (courtesy of the USAF carpetbombers of yore). Think I'll study those online runway length stats before I fly domestically in future!

Here's to uneventful journeys for you all - ie ones that don't require experienced interventions of Thai domestic airline pilots.

toot toot!

Due to Richard Barrow, 20 Nok Air flights canceled for Tuesday Feb 23.

Draw your own conclusions.

Interesting comments from both sides in Khoasod.

http://www.khaosodenglish.com/detail.php?newsid=1455698180&typecate=06&section=

There's also a thread running on www.pprune.com, which I won't link to, as it quotes the B.P. several times.

And the former pilot/manager who was fired, says that the original problem was due to two pilots being off-sick, and insufficient cover.

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/business/Nok-Air-flights-grounded-because-two-pilots-were-s-30279486.html

Nok is cancelling these flights because it doesn't have enough pilots. The incident at Maesot with it being reported the aircraft almost hitting a building in low visability. Those guys have either been fired or are under going retraining and are no longer available. Following that incident other pilots may be feeling the heat due to being not up to standard? The safety spotlight is on Nok at the moment. The recent strike and sackings of pilots adds to the shortage.

I have noticed that on the flights to Chiang Mai Nok combines two flights into one at least twice a day. The two 738 flights are replaced with one Nok Scoot 777 aircraft. I believe the 777 has two pilots the 738 has two pilots so by switching to 777 flight you you save the use of two other pilots or four considering the Nok Scoot guys have been brought in temporarily. On the website the flights to be cancelled and combined never say cancelled they just show them as full even though they won't operate.