Newsmakers
THAI staff resisting reforms, says the airline’s boss
October 1st 2015
Walking the talk in his battle to turn around flag carrier, Thai Airways International (THAI), is proving tougher than its reform minded president and chief executive, Charamporn Jotikasthira, expected. Read More » He told Bangkok’s media last month that the majority of the airline’s 25,000 strong work force does not share his urgency for the radical changes necessary for the airline’s survival.
 |
To encourage acceptance of the restructuring, which will include more executive and cabin crew redundancies by year end, he has been holding employee road shows to explain his reform programme and outline the problems created by the airline’s entrenched “silo management” structure. Whatever long-term THAI employees feel about their very business-minded boss, some changes are inevitable. By year end, 1,400 more employees will leave the airline under its Mutual Separation Plan and a forecast similar number of cabin crew will be retrenched under the Golden Handshake scheme as the carrier’s network shrinks.
THAI’s target for recovery is a 70% implementation of the turnaround plan by January next year, with a return to profitability, and completion of the full agenda for financial reform, by 2017.
