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THAI President Speaks at Pacific Asia
Travel Association (PATA) Forum
(L to R) Pandit Chanapai,
THAI commercial executive vice president; Bert Van Walbeek, PATA Thailand
Chapter; Piyasvasti Amranand, THAI president; Suraphon Svestasreni, governor
of the Tourism Authority of Thailand; and Martin Craigs, PATA CEO.
Piyasvasti Amranand, president of Thai Airways
International Public Company Limited (THAI) recently was a keynote speaker
on the topic “2012: Navigating the Headwinds” at the PATA (Thailand Chapter)
Forum on HUB City 2012, held at the Landmark Hotel.
Introducing Piyasvasti was PATA CEO Martin Craigs, who
said that PATA will celebrate its 60th anniversary this year, and that PATA
was ready to support the travel supply chain through advocacy.
Highlights of the keynote message included THAI’s
strategic roadmap for navigating through adverse factors such as high fuel
prices and world economy affecting travel and tourism, as well as
competitive markets for airlines.
PATA delegates and media were informed about THAI’s
network strategy, aircraft acquisition and retrofit plan, product quality
improvements, and THAI Smile as the new and dynamic flying option launching
in July 2012.
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Bangkok Airways to add more flights to Hong Kong
Bangkok Airways will be increasing its flight frequency
on the Koh Samui to Hong Kong route from daily to 10 flights weekly starting
from March 31, 2012.
Ariya Prasarttong-Osoth, vice president of sales for
Bangkok Airways comments, “To respond to an increasing demand and to offer
more choices for our passengers, we decided to add 3 more flights to each
leg of the Samui - Hong Kong route. The additional flights are PG873 Koh
Samui - Hong Kong (17.50 - 22.05 hrs), which operates every Tuesday,
Thursday and Saturday, and PG874 Hong Kong - Koh Samui (09.05 - 11.10 hrs)
which operates every Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. For this route we use an
Airbus 319 with a seat configuration of 12 business class and 108 economy
class seats.”
For more information and reservation, please contact
Bangkok Airways’ Call Center - 1771 or 0-2270-6699 or visit
www.bangkokair.com or contact your favorite travel agent.
The Rise of AirAsia’s
100th Dragon
AirAsia welcomes the arrival
of its 100th Airbus A320.
AirAsia welcomed the arrival of its 100th Airbus A320
this month. To commemorate this special event, the aircraft featured a
special dragon livery which is the zodiac sign for this Chinese New Year as
well as the zodiac sign of Tan Sri Tony Fernandes.
With its affiliates in Indonesia and Thailand, AirAsia
operates the Airbus A320 aircraft for its entire route network throughout
the region. Currently, both the Malaysia and Thailand operations are fully
Airbus, while the Indonesia operations will be 100% Airbus by end of 1Q
2012.
AirAsia group chief executive officer, Tan Sri Tony
Fernandes says, “We started with only two aircraft ten years ago, and here
we stand today with our 100th Airbus A320, making us the largest Airbus A320
aircraft operator in Southeast Asia. We have weathered many challenges,
persevering in the most difficult of situations. This milestone underlines
AirAsia’s commitment to continue to invest in new aircraft for the benefit
of our customers”
A team of 20 painters worked around the clock for 12 days
to paint the Airbus A320 in the colors of the dragon. Approximately 600
liters of paint were required to complete the job.
The aircraft, which will operate on the Kuala
Lumpur-Macau route right after it is launched, will also serve Kuala Lumpur,
Jakarta, Singapore, Hong Kong, cities in Indonesia, and destinations
throughout China on its aircraft rotation.
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