Thai Airways has indicated it will not retire its remaining fleet of Boeing 747-400 aircraft as quickly as planned.
Thai Airways faces both a short-term and long-term problem. On the short-term, half of its 787 fleet (four of eight aircraft) is currently grounded for “unscheduled” maintenance on its Rolls Royce engines. That has forced Thai to put an immediate hold on its 747 retirement plan. The flag carrier of Thailand already retired two 747-400s earlier this year and had planned to pull one more out of service. That will not happen now. In fact, Krittaphon Chantalitanon, Vice President of Alliances and Commercial Strategy indicated the retirement plan will be delayed “for another year or so.”
Thai retains six 747s in its fleet and had planned to retire them in the following sequence:
- 2019 – one aircraft
- 2020 – one aircraft
- 2021 – two aircraft
- 2022 – two aircraft
Thai is also considering extending the life of handful of its 777s.
This gets us to Thai’s long-term problem. The carrier cannot expect to compete while continuing to offer such a mediocre product in business class. Economy class is just fine on Thai: legroom is great and the service and food meet industry averages. First class is also just fine: not in the league of Singapore Airlines, but very competitive. Business class, however, is woefully uncompetitive on many aircraft, including the 747 and much of the 777 fleet. Thai offers angled seats that are simply not comfortable. Food is also below average. Across all cabins Thai still lacks wi-fi and its AVOD systems are now many years out of date. Meanwhile, the competition keeps innovating. To its credit, Thai is retrofitting its A330 fleet.
Thai has submitted an acquisition plan to the government to acquire 23 aircraft. At this point, however, it is unclear whether that is to acquire additional aircraft for fleet/route expansion or simply to replace existing aircraft. Thai has already cut back services to a handful of European cities.
CONCLUSION
Like KLM, Thai Airways is likely going to squeeze at least another year out of its 747-400s. Unlike KLM, though, Thai Airways further solidifies its uncompetitive regional position by continuing to offer an outdated product onboard.
> Read More: KLM Delays Retirement Of 747-400 Fleet
> Read More: Boeing 747 Skids Off Runway in Bangkok
image: Richard Vandervord / Wikimedia Commons
I strongly disagree with statement that their economy class is just average. Man, would I love to see such elaborate and tasty meal and drink services on European carriers.
The less than stellar business class would be okay if they didn’t try to charge 30-50 % more for it than competing carriers. One would be crazy to contemplate them : example Bangkok- Paris @ 110,00 Baht ( USD 3200) compared with Finnair @80,000 ( admittedly with 45 minute stop in Helsinki). Finnair is superior in every way, yet TG wants people to pay a substantial premium . Insane. I’m sure it’s fine for the hiso freeloaders but count me out until they come to their senses.
Still begs the question on what will happen to the first class… With their tiny A380 fleet and the tinier 747 subfleet that will remain by end of 2020, not sure how relevant they can be.
Agreed about the J class… And they make very bizarre choices even on new planes, i.e. Zodiac Cirrus on 787-9 but neither on 787-8 nor on A350. This is such a badly managed airline that will fall into oblivion little by little
If Thai are going to keep the 747s in service on trunk routes like BKK-SYD and BKK-ZRH then they need to fit with new business class seats or else do what they do on Scandinavian routes and sell first as business and business as premium economy. Either that or reduce the fares in business to reflect the offering.
They did the same thing with the MD11s coming up to retirement, no refit and they were selling business class with no footrest in an eight across config!
Delaying the retirement of quad jets is always music to my ears.