Thai Air to go bankrupt?

[davidge]

A Senior Thai Executive has denied various Press 'stories' that Thai may declare bankruptcy as soon as Monday.

 

Would the Junta really allow them to go under? Loss of face etc?

[scot75]

A Senior Thai Executive has denied various Press 'stories' that Thai may declare bankruptcy as soon as Monday.

 

Would the Junta really allow them to go under? Loss of face etc?

 

I knew they were having problems but had not heard about bankruptcy. Considering I'm flying with them in 3 weeks I guess I'd better keep an eye on things. 

[Al.]

Very unlikely seeing as more than 50% of Thai Air is owned by the government (Ministry of Finance) too much loss of face and no more free trips.

[jerry]

A Senior Thai Executive has denied various Press 'stories' that Thai may declare bankruptcy as soon as Monday.

 

Would the Junta really allow them to go under? Loss of face etc?

 

There is one thing more important in Thailand than losing face and that's losing money ... 

[Wrex]

To the op: can you confirm your source? So far what I have read was some consultant recommended selling some of Thai Airway's property (office, land) when it goes under financial rehabilitation. They are obviously in trouble  but is still trading with good volume on the SET.

[davidge]

To the op: can you confirm your source? So far what I have read was some consultant recommended selling some of Thai Airway's property (office, land) when it goes under financial rehabilitation. They are obviously in trouble  but is still trading with good volume on the SET.

Steve Herman, Voice of America Asia Correspondent.

 

I put question marks as it didn't sound a 'strong' story but he doesn't usually deal in pure gossip.

[scot75]

Might be this Bangkok Post article OP quoted:

 

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/transport/459651/thai-rejects-plan-to-sell-off-property

[davidge]

I was about to add that link to my post. Thanks :-)

[davidge]

Reading the article:

Thai employ an outside consultant to tell them how to turn the company around;

One of his proposals is that they sell their nice comfy office building;

Thai Execs rubbish the consultant :-)

[legend35]

I Hope not I fly with them on the 8th Feb , They better have enough fuel and food to get me to bangkok lol 

[davidge]

There were similar stories a year ago.

The company is losing a fortune & the Execs don't seem willing to turn it around.

Their answer has appeared to be, in typical Thai style, "we have no customers, so we put price up".

Certainly has been the case when I've looked for Business Class fares LHR-BKK. They have consistently been about £500 more than EVA and/or BA.

 

I still can't see the junta letting them go to the wall. I may be wrong.

[geezerrb]

I also hope they keep going my next booking is in late March, funnily enough though for my June trip I have booked with Qatar with a 90 minute stopover it was £200 cheaper than direct. I didn't mind paying a bit more for direct and with Thai for the service but they obviously had a problem as nearly always I have had a row of 3 or 4 seats to myself, great for getting some sleep.

[vincent law]

Good! I couldn't care less. Never once seeing a flight below 550.

 

Bunch of typical greedy ass Thais!

[Kandinski]

Have no idea of finacial situation for Thai Airways but in general it's rare flag carriers go out of business and would assume selling a few of their assess like land, real estate, landing slots etc should generate sufficient to re-structure  company.

[davidge]

The consultant suggested selling assets, like the Bangkok office building, overseas offices etc and the Thais told him where to go!

 

Swiss went under!

[Kandinski]

The consultant suggested selling assets, like the Bangkok office building, overseas offices etc and the Thais told him where to go!

 

Swiss went under!

 

Yes, as one of the few  but still flying

[Perthie]

Not allowed to go bankrupt until after my next trip......

 

OhShitOhShitOhShit!!

 

News like that certainly won't help the company's bottom line, as it's bound to deter some folks from booking with Thai 'just in case'.  I would imagine that if things get too serious then a bailout and a restructure will take place, as I doubt if the Kingdom will want to suffer the loss of it's national carrier.  The losses sound horrendous, but there are other national airlines that have done a great deal worse and traded through the difficulties.

 

Thankfully I booked with a CC for a change instead of paying direct from my bank account if things do go tits-up.

 

Cheers

 

Perthie

[scot75]

Not allowed to go bankrupt until after my next trip......

 

OhShitOhShitOhShit!!

 

News like that certainly won't help the company's bottom line, as it's bound to deter some folks from booking with Thai 'just in case'.  I would imagine that if things get too serious then a bailout and a restructure will take place, as I doubt if the Kingdom will want to suffer the loss of it's national carrier.  The losses sound horrendous, but there are other national airlines that have done a great deal worse and traded through the difficulties.

 

Thankfully I booked with a CC for a change instead of paying direct from my bank account if things do go tits-up.

 

Cheers

 

Perthie

 

LoL  - I saw the post earlier and thought the same.  Sounds like it's more rumors than anything else at the moment.   

[davidge]

Sorry lads. Hope I didn't send your blood pressure up too much :-)

 

The problems are long-running but the Execs don't seem willing to sort things out. Guess they're confident the Govt will bail them out if it really goes tits up!

[scot75]

Sorry lads. Hope I didn't send your blood pressure up too much :-)

 

The problems are long-running but the Execs don't seem willing to sort things out. Guess they're confident the Govt will bail them out if it really goes tits up!

 

Haha yeah I did panic for a little bit but you're right it's a long running issue and I can't see the Gov let it collapse. 

[brutox]

.. as most national enterprises, Thai Air is deeply infected with mismanagement .. that an outside consultant recommended selling off non-core assets (office buildings) is unsurprising and should not be interpreted as alarming .. just sound business sense .. (their cash should be vectored into operations, not tied-up in il-liquid, non-essential office properties).

 

.. if TG does hit the wall, I doubt the Thai government will allow it to go under .. Thai pride and all that .. they would presumably find the cash to inject from somewhere, even if it is expensive money.

 

.. the fact that TG is majority-owned by the Thai government is only part of the problem .. from a commercial perspective, Thais are conditioned to loath appointing trained, experienced, foreigners to leadership roles in Thai enterprises .. without international standards of competence, they invariably "do just enough", languishing in mediocrity and worse in the face of rising international competition .. the senior management of most modern international airlines are a UN of talent.

 

.. a friend heading Asia for one of the world's top strategic consulting firms got a view inside of TG 6, or 7 years ago .. he described it as a typical bureaucratic wreck, run by a board of military officers and hi-so in-breds, with little or no aviation transportation experience, and whose dreamy ambitions to surpass SG as #1 in Asia far exceeded reality .. projectile bleeding non-revenue generating seats, TG is treated as a private livery for every Thai politician and senior bureaucrat, plus their hangers-on .. they ate up 1st and business classes, which is where the profit is (economy pays to keep the lights on, only), displacing paying passengers.

 

.. he believed no Thai management was capable of resisting the compelling pressure to allow the abuse to continue .. even when curbs on free tickets were implemented, they were ineffective in stemming non-revenue generating seat utilization rates.

 

.. he believes that until a commercial-oriented management takes control of TG, a return to competitiveness is probably unlikely .. his firm declined to become involved because they believed they simply could not help TG in the face of the political mismanagement over which they had no influence .

 

.. if foreign bail-out money were brought in, TG would be forced to change its ways .. just as with the Asia Currency Crisis, only the arrival of foreign money forced the Thai banks and the Thai government to clean-up their ugly mess (.. umm .. such as they have).

 

.. my bet is that TG will continue flying .. as a precaution, however, I personally would not risk buying new tickets, having read what TG has so far announced (I never fly TG anyway, and I live here) .. a person simply can never really anticipate what a Thai-controlled platform, especially a highly-politicized play pretty like their very own airline, is capable of doing.

 

.. this will be another interesting chapter on Thailand's forced reluctant arrival into the reality of a world they can no longer merely dismiss with prejudice .. change is being forced upon Thailand by the outside world, as Thais are culturally programmed to resist change.

[felix the cat]

Know wonder they're going under.....I purchased a Jetstar return ticket (March) for $530AUD...Thai was $1050AUD....for the exact same dates & departure times.

 

$520 goes a long way in Patts!

[BigVenz]

No surprise, when I fly United to Tokyo I hate the ANA leg to Bangkok, but to buy the Thai Airways leg it is $3,000 more expensive for economy through United website on same itinerary.

Once in awhile when I do a mileage ticket it is the Thai flight offered for the half mile special and the plane is half full.

I would choose to the Thai leg all the time if it was reasonable price.

[LRanger]

TG prices are always unbelievably high.  Most of the legacy airlines are loaded down with bureaucracy and higher costs of doing business whilst getting chewed out by low cost carriers.  I flew TG Xmas 2013 and it was actually quite poor compared to LCC Jetstar.

 

But there is now way the junta will let it collapse. They will find a way to blame it on Thaksin and pump money in and use some creative idea to fund it, like an arrival and departure tax increase on all who use the airports....

[LASportsNut]

Great service but over priced.