Thai Airways International will chop three routes as it continues efforts to stem its financial bleeding.
Thai Airways International will slash more unprofitable routes in March as the airline tries to end losses. (Photo by Pattarapong Chatpattarasill)
THAI president Charamporn Jotikasthira said the airline will no longer fly Bangkok-Madrid and Bangkok-Moscow and stop the service between Phuket and Seoul from March 29.
The decision followed the scrapping of the Johannesburg route on Jan 15.
The next destination that could be scrapped is to Los Angeles. Mr Charamporn said the carrier will evaluate the business potential of the flight to the United States in the second quarter.
The flights to Spain and Russia from Bangkok and the Phuket-Seoul service are in the red. The Los Angeles flight suffers the same fate due to fierce competition across the Pacific.
Mr Charamporn said THAI could not compete with charter flights feeding tourists from Russian to Thailand on the Moscow route, although Russians ranked third among visitors to the kingdom.
The airline has been ordered by the State Enterprise Policy Committee, known as the "Super Board", to navigate its way out of its slump.
The airline president said THAI will increase the frequency of profitable routes largely to and from Japan and China to compensate for the scrapped routes.
THAI will protect all destinations that make profits and even strengthen the position on those routes, he added.
The airline plans to increase revenue by offering maintenance services for other airlines and launching promotional campaigns to entice travellers to fly THAI.
Mr Charamporn said the slashing of jobs would be a last resort if the airline could not lower its costs by 30% as the committee had ordered.
About 5,000 out of 25,000 THAI staff could be unemployed if the airline decides to trim the fat.