The lifting of visa requirements for Thai citizens since the middle of last year helped Turkish Airlines to fill up its seats from and to Bangkok.
BANGKOK- Turkish Airlines was recently present at the Thailand International Travel Fair 2013 offering special air fares to consumers. “We continue to participate to the Thailand International Travel Fair as we see a rising interest from Thai consumers to visit Turkey but also as we focus on promotional activities and brand image building in Thailand. Also as Turkey now delivers visa on arrival to Thai citizens, we experience a major positive impact on our activity. The number of Thai passengers on our flight progressed by 15% since the measure was implemented”, indicated during the show Kerrar Yuksel, Director for Thailand and Cambodia Turkish Airlines.
Turkish serves twice daily Bangkok with brand new aircraft Airbus A330 or A340 and its average load factor is now heading in the range of 90%. “This is an absolute historical high”, added Mr. Yuksel. It also offers a daily frequency to Ho Chi Minh City out of Bangkok.
Will the airline add soon any new capacity ? “ We are short of aircrafts for now as we continue to expand our network at very high speed. We currently fly to 98 countries and 219 cities around the world. We will soon add Houston, Marseille, Buenos Aires via Sao Paulo while in Asia, we will finally start flying back to Kuala Lumpur from April 25”, said Turkish Airlines Director for Thailand. The airline will offer three weekly frequencies to the Malaysian capital until June 18, when Turkish will add a fourth flight. The carrier plans also to launch flights to Osaka Kansai from winter 2013-14.
Luc Citrinot a French national is a freelance journalist and consultant in tourism and air transport with over 20 years experience. Based in Paris and Bangkok, he works for various travel and air transport trade publications in Europe and Asia.
