THAI Smile outlines expansion plans

27 May 2013 2096 | Business & Trade Fairs

BANGKOK, 27 May 2013: THAI Smile, the light-premium airline brand owned and managed by Thai Airways International, will take delivery of more aircraft and increase flight frequency to serve passenger demand.

The airline managing director, Woranate Laprabang, told TTR Weekly that THAI Smile will take delivery of four aircraft over the remainder of the year to give it a fleet of 10 by year-end.

The airline will receive two 168-seat A320-200s in October, one each in November and December. In early 2014, it will add aircraft in January and February raising the fleet strength to 12.

He added: “According to the plan, we will operate 20 A320s by 2015. In 2014, we increase the fleet to 17 aircraft and then to 20 a year later.”

It will allow the airline to build an extensive network covering the ASEAN region. It will include some trunk routes that are served by THAI, but have a high demand for both low-fare and business traffic. This will allow THAI Smile to take the low-fare business freeing up seats for business travellers or higher yield economy fare travel on the parallel TG services. In addition, it will concentrate on secondary routes in Asia.

There are plans to increase flights on established routes as well as open new routes this year.

“We now are considering more flights from Phuket to New Delhi and Mumbai including a service from Bangkok to Ahmedabad and Macau.”

China and ASEAN destinations are the priorities, but the airline’s managing director warned China was not an easy market to tap.

Changing the status of the airline from a TG business unit to a separate company remains in the pipeline, but the management needed to revise information it had presented to the Ministry of Transport following a request for more details.

“It is now under the consideration of the transport ministry and should go to the Cabinet within the next months for consideration,” he said.

THAI Smile, late last March, started a five weekly service from Bangkok to Mandalay. It increased flights to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (four flights), Mumbai and New Delhi in India (two flights each) all out of its Phuket sub-hub and a service to Ahmedabad, India, (two flights) from Bangkok.

In the business plan, THAI Smile projects it will carry 5.3 million passengers annually by 2015 and earn revenue of Bt21 billion.

This year, the airline should carry 1.8 million passengers and earn around Bt6 billion.

The airline offers domestic services to Chiang Mai, Krabi, Phuket, Udon Thani, Ubon Ratchathani, and Surat Thani and flies to six international destinations (Ahmadabad, Mumbai, Delhi, Macau, Kuala Lumpur, and Mandalay).