Thai Airways cuts flights because of floods

21 Nov 2011

Thai Airways announced last week that as many visitors had cancelled their trips to Thailand it was also cancelling some of its flights. Although the main international gateway to the country, Suvarnabhumi Airport, is operating normally large areas of Bangkok are awash with floodwater.

The Thai national carrier’s management say that due to flooding in Bangkok many people have cancelled their holidays to Thailand. The airline said it would cut around 500 flights from its timetable, but added that the reductions would be scheduled to cause minimum disruptions for passengers.

Thai Airways also said it would run day-to-day checks on passengers booked for specific flights and downsize the size of aircraft in keeping with the number of people.

At this time of year it is the peak holiday season in Thailand and Thai Airways’ services usually fly at full capacity. Airports of Thailand director Anirut Thanomkulabutra said there had been a 10 per cent fall in passenger numbers at Thai international airports compared with October last year.

He added that at Suvarnabhumi the amount of passengers for the month had dropped from 130,000 to 100,000. Scheduled flights had also fallen by 100 to 800.

The loss of earnings at the start of the peak tourist season will compound problems for Thai Airways. Increased fuel prices and currency exchange instability had caused the carrier to post losses of almost five billion Baht in the previous nine months of the year.

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