The decisions by Japan and South Korea to ban additional Thai flights has brought quick, official reaction. Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha has assigned his foreign minister — the former supreme commander — to try to get the bans lifted. But there is still no effective solution to the very real concerns by Tokyo and Seoul over airline safety.
Aviation officials in South Korea and Japan described their actions in blacklisting some flights as "pre-emptive". They do not affect flights currently servicing those countries.
The ban has two parts: current flights may continue as scheduled, but no changes can be made to flight details or types of aircraft. Second, and this is the greater shock, no new flights or airlines are permitted.
It has immediate effect. Unfortunately, charter and startup airlines have sold tens of thousands of seats for flights to Japan and South Korea during the long Songkran holiday.
Unless there is a change in attitude from Tokyo and Seoul, all of those planned holidays are now cancelled. Two new budget airlines — already well-known and well-backed — are Thai AirAsia X and NokScoot. They won't be allowed to begin their schedules on May 1 and May 16 respectively, and cannot fly charter flights to the two countries.
The prime minister has taken a direct role in all of this. He ordered Foreign Minister Tanasak Patimapragorn to "negotiate" with Japan over the issue. The premier noted in his remarks that the Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) seemed incapable of such negotiations. The DCA is clearly the source of the problem. Japan, South Korea and others don't believe the DCA can ensure any Thai airline's safety. This is the core problem that needs discussion.
Flight safety awareness is particularly important at present. Last week, the crash of a German budget airline Airbus in the French Alps killed 150 passengers and crew. The depressed co-pilot who crashed the Germanwings aircraft had apparently evaded tests that would have disclosed a serious mental illness.
This follows the Dec 28 crash of an AirAsia Airbus into the sea off Indonesia, killing all 162 people aboard. Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 disappeared a little over a year ago, just off Thailand. It has not been found, but search and recovery operations are focused under the seas off western Australia. These are important incidents, and pertinent to the controversy over Thai aviation. That is because civil air regulations, oversight, maintenance and crew reliability all come down to one big goal: preventing aircraft from crashing.
According to international aircraft experts, at the United Nations and elsewhere, the DCA can no longer do that. For example, the UN's International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) conducted a January audit of the DCA. The department met 21 of the 100 requirements.
ICAO has said for some time that unless the DCA and the government act to improve oversight of civil aviation, Thailand will be downgraded. A demotion to Category 2 would dwarf the current problem of a few Songkran flights to Japan and South Korea. Thai aircraft would almost automatically be banned from most of the world's airports.
While major airlines like Thai Airways International would probably not suffer much from the government's negligence, small and startup airlines certainly would.
Protesting to Japan about the flight bans gives the wrong impression. The government should instead be directing its efforts towards bringing the DCA back up to world aviation standards.