Regional Round-Up
Politics shreds THAI’s bottom line
June 1st 2014
In May, Thai Airways International (THAI) reported its fourth consecutive quarterly loss, US$81.1 million, for the three months to March 31. That was the good news. Since then, after a military coup, on May 22, put the armed forces in charge and night curfews in place, the number of tourists travelling to Thailand has plummeted. Read More »
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At press time, Thailand’s state tourism office said there had been a 20% decline in visitors to the country in the six days after the coup. In response, the junta reduced the overnight curfew to four hours, from midnight to 4 am.
This news will hardly halt a six month decline in THAI’s load factor brought on by the country’s political turmoil. Announcing the quarterly results a week before the coup, THAI acting president, Chokchai Panyayong, said the political unrest in Bangkok had a significant impact on the carrier’s first quarter, which is normally the high season for tourism in Thailand. Inbound and outbound tourists dropped by 17% compared with the same quarter in 2013, including a 27% decline in Chinese tourist arrivals and a 25.2% drop off in Japanese visitors. Load factor was 70.1%. In 2013 for the same months, it was 79.8%.
THAI is still looking for a new president and is also conducting a worldwide search for a chief financial officer. It is the first time the airline has decided to recruit for the position from outside the carrier.
Separately, the former THAI president, Piyasvasti Amranand, who turned around the fortunes of the carrier during his short reign, has won his wrongful dismissal case and is reported to have been awarded US$30,000 in damages. The former energy minister was dismissed by his airline board for lapses “in communications” in May 2012, after just over three years of doing a very good job of running THAI. Thailand’s Central Labour Court found there were no grounds for the airline to terminate his employment contract and ordered the airline to compensate him. THAI has appealed. Piyasvasti is now chairman of the Energy for Environment Foundation Thailand, a non- profit organization undertaking renewable energy and energy efficiency projects.
