The board of Thailand's national carrier in mid February approved the sale of numerous planes from the current Thai Airways International fleet. Models approved for sale include the Airbus A330-300, the Airbus A340-600, and the Boeing 747-400.
In June 2015, new THAI president Charamporn Jotikasthira will propose to the board the sale of additional Boeing 747-400s. With the board's previous resolution to sell aircraft, 2015 will see THAI making many changes aimed at turning the airline around.
This sell-off will cut THAI's fleet and also affect its subsidiary THAI Smile as well.
This would mean the average age of its fleet, Charamporn said, would then be 7.8 years which is considered as new. He said the shorter usage time would cut the aviation management costs of THAI by six percent.
Charamporn was quoted as saying, “The operating result for this year does not depend on operations but on asset sales. It depends on whether these asset sales turn out as expected. The sale should go well now because of the decline in the price of oil.”
THAI has also made changes to a number of routes in its global network. Its flights from Bangkok to Johannesburg were stopped on January 15 and flights from Bangkok to Moscow ended on March 28. Flights from Bangkok to Madrid will be terminated on September 5. Some other routes have had the frequency adjusted.
Charamporn said the terminated routes had been loss-ridden for a long time and had no prospects for recovery.
The Thai Airways International president indicated that operations on Asian routes had bright prospects, but those on European routes were shrinking. He said the carrier planned to use Airbus A380 aircraft on direct flights from Bangkok to London, Paris and Frankfurt.
From its Bangkok, Thailand base, THAI currently flies to many major destinations around the world. This includes locations in the Asia Pacific region such as Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney in Australia, Auckland in New Zealand, Jakarta and Denpasar (Bali) in Indonesia, Osaka, Tokyo, Nagoya, Fukuoka and Sapporo in Japan, Seoul and Busan in Korea, Taipei in Taiwan, Ho Chi Minh and Hanoi in Vietnam, Manila in the Philippines, Singapore, Yangon in Myanmar, Vientiane and Luang Prabang in Laos, Kathmandu in Nepal, Phnom Penh in Cambodia, Calcutta, Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Gaya and Varanasi in India, and Beijing, Chongqing, Changsha, Kunming, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Cheng-Du, Xiamen and Hong Kong in China.
European destinations include Brussels in Belgium, Copenhagen in Denmark, Paris in France, Frankfurt and Munich in Germany, Stockholm in Sweden, Zurich in Switzerland and London (Heathrow) in England.
In North America THAI flies to Los Angeles and in the Middle East to Muscat in Oman and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.
The carrier's domestic network links 10 destinations to its Bangkok home base. These are Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai in northern Thailand, Khon Kaen, Ubon Ratchathani and Udon Thani in the Northeast, and Hat Yai, Phuket, Surat Thani, Samui and Krabi in the South.
Nguyen An Tra My
Martin Wynn
