Thai Airways will discipline two staff members over the first class seating controversy last week that deeply embarrassed the Thai flag carrier.
In a statement quoted in the Bangkok Post, Thai Airways President Sumeth Damrongchaitham said:
It was found and concluded that the TG971 pilot and Thai Zurich station manager performed their duties accordingly but failed to exercise good judgement in meeting the company’s mission and ethics of providing of providing passengers with the best possible air transportation experience.
They failed to coordinate with each other to resolve the problem regarding passive crew seating, and this resulted in the flight delay that impacted adversely on passengers and the company’s reputation.
So let me get this straight: they “performed their duties accordingly” but failed to meet a broader, somewhat murky, standard of protecting passengers and Thai’s reputation? That seems to be a moving target.
Damrongchaitham added:
I want to reassure our passengers and customers that at Thai, safety and customer satisfaction are our top priority. We shall take corrective action, create better alignment and efficiency with a stronger customer-centric approach to prevent any recurrence of this kind of incident and make Thai the pride of Thailand again.
When I wrote about this issue last week, I took a rather even-handed approach in my analysis. On the one hand, I empathize with Thai Airways: what an embarrassing delay and one that seems rather petty considering the off-duty crew members were offered business class seats. On the other hand, labor contracts represent a hard-fought compromise and it appears the off-duty pilots were contractually entitled to those first class seats.
CONCLUSION
I don’t think the latest statements from Thai Airways help the matter. In fact, I think it will further exacerbate fragile labor tensions and not lead to a constructive outcome. And realistically, what kind of discipline will the captain and Zurich station manager actually recieve? A downgrade to business class?
> Read More: Captain Delays Flight 2.5 Hours When Denied First Class Seats For Friends
image: Masakatsu Ukon / Flickr
A lip service for public?
I’m not sure we should try to understand Thai employment law! I’m pretty sure it’s very different anything in the west and much Thai law is shifting sand. Equally, there won’t be clarity because such a thing does not exist in Thailand!
This is window dressing reassurance to the passengers who have not yet given up on Thai!
Yes, they should be disciplined. Whilst they applied the letter of the law, ie the absurd entitlement that crew must have F, in respect of common sense it was an mega fail. Their behaviour reinforces the perception that with Thai, staff come first, the paying public second.
Thai’s glory days are long since gone; it’s an airline hanging on by a thread. Needless to say that the assorted Generals, Air Vice Marshalls and hiso connected types on the Board have made zero progress in turning TG around.
Yes, they should be disciplined. Any kind of internal disruptions in the expense of Customers is not acceptable.
And who can guarantee the “internal disruption” is not an agenda to amend the employment contract unilaterally though a precedent? Either don’be naive, or simply don’t be stupid.
I now I am beating a dead horse in going back to 2017, but I take Thai ANY day over United..yes there won’t be any real impact but Thai’s response is much better then what we have seen from United Air 2017.
I am somewhat biased as often traveling with three young kids, and on Thai has been all smiles all the time so far.
United Business (me alone) from SFO to SIN: Nice purser and great start, then never saw him again for entire flight and the crew left working as grumpy as one can be…
Quote from United’s Internal Memo in response to the Dr Dao incident 2017″ : As you will read, this situation was unfortunately compounded when one of the passengers we politely asked to deplane refused and it became necessary to contact Chicago Aviation Security Officers to help. Our employees followed established procedures for dealing with situations like this”
This kind of thing isn’t new. Back in the 70’s my best friend Alain was an SFO-based flight attendant with Western Airlines. I remember him telling me that Western was forced to deplane a first class passenger in Seattle to accommodate him because the FA contract stipulated that after a certain duty period the deadhead back to domicile was guaranteed to be in first class. All these years later I remember Alain saying how angry the deplaned passenger was. (And how all the other first class passengers glared at him when he took the deplaned passenger’s seat!)