"Nok Air" upbeat as airline plans to increase international routes to China and Japan

 

Picture: Daily News

 

Nok Air has said that they expect to return to profitability next year after four losing years with the future of the airline being international as much as domestic.

 

General marketing manager Pinyot Phiboonsongkhram was speaking to Daily News about the future of the airline following a restructuring program.

 

More efficient use of their fleet means that aircraft will now be in the air for up to 11 hours per day compared to 8 hours before.

 

One of the key components of improvements will be international routesthat will see the company's percentage of overseas flights increase from 5% to 20% this year.

 

Plans are in place so that half of the company's operations will be international by 2020.

 

Most of this will be adding up to 20 routes in China. This year five routes will be added. Three are from Don Muang, Chiang Mai and Phuket directly to Guangzhou in China.

 

Three routes will be added in August and two in October. Phuket to Khunming is another route due in August.

 

By 2020 the company plans 20 international routes in total including a direct flight to Okinawa, Japan.

 

Domestic routes will be unchanged in the short term but no new routes will be added internally, said Pinyot.

 

Plans are afoot to take larger aircraft out of service on domestic routes that struggle to fill planes. Passengers to several Thai cities can expect to travel in 86 seater propeller planes not jets in the future - Daily news mentioned routes to Phitsanuloke, Khon Kaen, Buriram and Ranong for the use of such aircraft.

 

Nok Air are awaiting delivery of four new Boeing aircraft in 2018.

 

The airline has been losing money over the last four years but hopes are that profits will return to the carrier next year after the

restructuring, said Pinyot.

 

Source: Daily News

 

-- © Copyright Thai Visa News 2017-07-18

Sounds exciting.  Can one by stock in this company ?   Their management seems to have some good ideas.  Took a prop plane from Saigon to Phnom Penh. It was quite fun.  Noisy, but the flight was short and comfortable. 

Turboprops are cheaper to run, generally, and if the jets are too big a smaller turboprop is quite acceptable.

Good idea, Nok!

And maybe a daily flight KKC to UTP and back, please?

Maybe they can extend themselves to helping disabled people with wheelchairs to get on and off their aircraft. But I doubt it.

It is just like anything in Thailand. Money, money money!