Thai Airways lowers costs to fight competition from Gulf carriers

[Dubnologist]

Thai Airways president Charamporn Jotikasthira said the carrier will cut costs in order to help fight off growing competition from Gulf airlines.

The south-east Asian carrier reported operating losses of $126 million for the first nine months of this year, which was a 72 percent improvement on the $451 million loss it reported for the first nine months of last year.

Speaking at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Thailand last week, Jotikasthira said there were 21 measures devised by Thai Airways as part of its bid to cut 20 percent of its non-fuel charges by the end of 2016.

Jotikasthira said the carrier, which has reduced its fleet from 135 to 94, needs to regain its status as a transport hub in Asia for passengers travelling from Europe, Australia and Japan.

 

“Now, a lot of airplanes are simply flying over our heads. Passenger travel from Europe to Dubai or Abu Dhabi, then go to Sydney,” he said.

Jotikasthira said the cost-cutting measures and increased revenue, from operating one-stop flights instead of non-stop flights, will enable the airline to better compete with Middle East carriers.

The number of flights from the Middle East to Thailand has increased by 28 percent since 2014, he said. Thailand’s open skies policy, first introduced in 2005, allows third-party carriers from other countries to fly to Bangkok and then carry passengers on to Sydney.

He said the airline had to suspend a number of loss-making flights earlier this year, including one to Los Angeles.

 

“This year we had extra costs because we had to shut down several destinations like Madrid, Johannesburg and Los Angeles,”

[iggy56]

ill hope they still in business in march, and longer than that for the people working there.from stockholm its maybe the best connection as its a direct flight

[LRanger]

TG seems a bloated bureaucracy . Their prices always seem to be leading the market trying to compete with SIA for the most expensive.  And they are not worth the difference.

 

I flew Emirates A380 BKK-HK-BKK last xmas for $250AUD return and it was superb.