Thai Airways International will in a few weeks release its winter schedule for 2011/12. While the details are still unknown, the airline has announced an increase its flights on Scandinavia – possible even include more departures directly from Copenhagen to Phuket.
At the conference “Routes Asia” the head of Thai Airways route development department, Nongnuj Ratanavichi, revealed the expansion.
It is not clear in what way the frequency will be increased. Thai Airways International already have daily flights to Copenhagen, Stockholm and Oslo. The travel portal Check-In.dk expects the increase to consist of three additional flights per week between Copenhagen and Bangkok, but says a route between Copenhagen and Phuket could also be a possibility.
The expansion is possible because Thai Airways will receive new aircraft for its regional routes during 2011. Flemming Sonne, Thai Airways International in Copoenhagen, confirms the plans according to Check-in.dk but declines further details as the plans are still being finalized.
Copenhagen Airport hopes the increase will benefit Copenhagen Airport and not Stockholm-Arlanda.
Søren Hedegaard Nielsen, Copenhagen Airport, says:
“Thai Airways has previously mentioned that eventually they wanted to go ‘double daily’ on Copenhagen so we hope their deliberations will be in our favour.”
SAS also has daily flights on Bangkok while the Norwegian low cost airlines Norwegian and FEEL Air are said to have plans to start flying to Bangkok with the not so distant future.
Per Møller Jensen, SAS’s Vice President, Brand, Marketing & EuroBonus says:
“SAS’ route on Bangkok-route is doing fine, but the general demand for travels to Bangkok is high so it is not a surprise if Thai Airways should decide to try to increase its capacity. Thai Airways has a big share of the leisure trafic while we at SAS has a good grip on the business travel market.”
