As part of its restructuring plan, Thai Airways global Pcl will be reducing its offered flights and cut 1,401 jobs through voluntary retirement, according to a report from Reuters.
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The airline will suspend the unprofitable four roundtrip flights per week from Bangkok to Los Angeles and from Bangkok to Rome, starting October 25, Thai Airways President Jarumporn Chotikasathein said in a statement.
It will also half the number of flights from Bangkok to Kolkata, from two flights daily to one flight daily. The company aims to cut capacity by 15 percent during the second of 2015.
In the aftermath of the airline’s twin tragedies last year (its flight that went missing off of Indonesia and its flight that was shot down over eastern Ukraine), its recently-appointed CEO Christoph Mueller said “We are technically bankrupt”, and that the “decline of performance started long before the tragic events of 2014”.
Aikawa was speaking at a news conference after his company confirmed plans to end output at its sole North American plant in Normal, Illinois and serve the US market from factories in Japan and Thailand. It will also transfer operations of three routes, Hyderabad in India, Changsha in China and Luang Prabang in Laos, to its Thai Smile mid-range unit. 3 billion for the voluntary retirement scheme.
Jotikasthira also stated that those employees retiring in 2015 are excluded from the number of those leaving.
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Flights to London, United Kingdom and Frankfurt, Germany, will increase, though, according to the company’s news. It was able to reverse course in the first quarter this year, posting a net profit of 4.54 billion baht, helped by a robust travel industry, foreign exchange gains and cost controls. He also reiterated his expectation that Thai Airways’ operation will break even at the end of this year, although the bottom line would be impacted by rising restructuring costs. Both flights will double its weekly flights of seven to 14 flights, for both the Airbus A380-800 and Boeing 77-300ER.
