Airline News
U.S.’s FAA to re-inspect Thailand and THAI announces it will keep its A380s
October 9th 2015
Thailand’s new permanent secretary of the Ministry of Transport, Chatchai Thipsunavee, is confident the country’s safety rating will not be downgraded after the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA’s) next visit to the country on October 26. Read More » During its last audit in July, the FAA highlighted 35 safety deficiencies at Thailand’s Department of Civil Aviation (DCA), which if not addressed, could result in Thai airlines being banned from entering the U.S. or operating codeshares with U.S. carriers.
To avoid new sanctions, Thailand’s military rulers have set up an air force-led group “with special powers” to speed up the process of fixing shortcomings in the aviation regulatory system identified in the International Civil Aviation Organization’s (ICAO’s) damaging February audit. The Command Center for Resolving Civil Aviation Issues (CRCA), with the Royal Thai Air Force and the DCA as core units, will be headed by the air force’s commander-in-chief, Air Chief Marshal Treetod Sonjance, who is also vice- chairman at Thai Airways International (THAI).
THAI president, Charamporn Jotikasthira, on Monday confirmed the flag carrier would retain its six A380s that fly to Frankfurt, London, Paris and Tokyo but said the airline would definitely not add more of the type to its fleet. The THAI boss said the A380 made financial sense so long as all 507 seats were filled. Meanwhile, while recent reports indicated THAI would be disposing of its twelve B747-400s, Jotikasthira told CAPA last month they would be retained for longer than originally expected. The decline in the price of fuel, coupled with plenty of available trained crews, has rendered the type more appealing for the short term, he said.
THAI has come under immense pressure from rival carriers adding frequencies to its Suvarnabhumi hub. Emirates Airline this week said it was “unaffected” by the August Bangkok bombings and as such “would definitely consider adding more services,” in addition to a fourth daily A380 to Bangkok and four additional weekly services to Phuket from December 1. The incremental rotations will raise Emirates’ seat capacity between Thailand and the UAE to 4,500 a day, from the current 3,053.
In other Thai aviation news, long-haul low-cost carrier, Thai AirAsia X (TAAX), on Wednesday launched operations to Shanghai’s Pudong, its first destination since May, when it began flying to Sapporo. The Sapporo service was halted in August because of Japanese concerns about Thailand's aviation safety following the ICAO and FAA warnings.
TAAX chief, Nadda Buranasiri, said the Japan Civil Aviation Bureau (JCAB) was taking the ICAO's red flag seriously, restricting new flights by Thai-registered airlines to the country. "Japan's door is shut and the JCAB has not shown any sign of when it will reopen,'' he told the Bangkok Post.
