News
Controversy at THAI continues to bubble away
January 15th 2016
Another week, another controversy at Thai Airways International (THAI) or so it seems. An article in the Bangkok Post this week suggested the struggling flag carrier is about to confirm Bryan Banston as vice-president of sales to aid with its rehabilitation. Read More » This would break with THAI’s long-held tradition of appointing Thai executives only.
Banston, originally from Melbourne and with more than 30 years industry experience, has previously served as vice-president for commercial operations Australasia at Emirates Airline. According to the Bangkok Post, Banston will draw a basic salary of 650,000 baht a month ($17,920) in addition to a monthly travel allowance of 70,000 baht, a housing allowance of 100,000 baht, four business-class tickets each for international and domestic travel on THAI a year, medical and insurance coverage and other fringe benefits normally received by vice-presidents of the carrier.
If confirmed, Banston’s salary would be three times the level paid to a Thai executive of equivalent corporate seniority and even higher than that of the senior executive vice-president for commercial operations.
THAI CEO, Charamporn Jotikasthira, has defended the recruitment of expats for top dollars and said the remuneration was in line with international scales. Khun Charamporn last year received significant criticism in the Thai media, and from his predecessors, for appointing former Oman Air CEO, Wayne Pearce, for six months at a consultancy fee of 10.6 million baht.
The back-and-forth continues at THAI. After announcing the termination of Rome from October 25 last year and then extending this to February 1 this year, THAI has now decided to retain the four-weekly B777-200ERs to Fiumicino, as well as its thrice-weekly flights to Malpensa Milan.
Khun Charamporn also caused confusion at a press conference in late December when he said “if THAI can achieve [improved] utilisation of aircraft and capacity, we should be able to increase capacity by 2%-3% next year and also resume flights to the U.S. in late 2016 or early 2017". It is unclear how Khun Charamporn plans to circumvent the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) downgrade of Thailand to Category 2, preventing all new route launches by Thai-registered carriers.
Elsewhere in Thai aviation, Thai AirAsia (TAA) has announced a new daily Phuket-Wuhan A320 route starting from February 1. This is in addition to new links from U-Tapao to Nanchang, Nanning and Macau.
TAA’s long-haul offshoot, Thai Air Asia X, plans to increase its A330 fleet to seven this year to commence flights to India and additional destinations in China. It operates to Narita, Kansai, Incheon and Pudong, after having its Japan growth curbed by the International Civil Aviation Organisation’s (ICAO) red-flagging of the kingdom’s aviation safety oversight last June.
