Updated June 9th.

If you go to the Thai Air Website and try to book a flight from the end of June the first thing you’ll notice is that round trip Economy class seats are over $5000 and the second is that all the flights from the end of June through the summer are sold out.

Rumors have been circling for the past two years that Thai Air would drop the non stop New York to Bangkok route due to money loss and now with the huge fuel increases it seems the rumors will come true. Thai Air executives are to meet sometime in the coming week to determine if the non stop New York to Bangkok flights will be scaled back from six weekly flights to three or if the route will be dropped completely.

Since May of 2005 Thai Air has operated six non stop flights weekly from New York to Bangkok…and since May 2005 Thai Air has lost money on this route. Although the planes were always at 70%-80% capacity, the higher priced business and first class seats were never close to capacity.

Economy seats in the last two years have averaged $1000.00 round trip and from my experience there was never an empty seat in economy class. Premium Economy was generally around $1400.00 while Business class and Royal Silk (first class) went from $3000.00 to $7000.

With a flight time of 17 hours the non stop flight was the fastest way to get to Thailand from the East coast of America. Using Airbus A340-500s made for a very comfortable flight, even in Economy class…although it wasn’t even close to being fuel efficient. With long flights like this using large planes you have to burn more fuel just to carry the needed fuel.

Sinagapore Airlines is facing a similar problem with it’s non stop flights to America but has chosen to opt for an all Business class seating arangement to offset rising fuel costs and empty seats. Thai Air has no such plans in the works and all signs point to a full shut down of the New York to Bangkok route as of July 1st.

Thai Air is continuing to book fares for this flight from early June at their website but all flights after the middle of June are showing as sold out. It’s believed that these flights and previously booked flights for the summer months will be rerouted to LAX via Star Alliance member United Airlines. This added flight will add three hours to flight time and seems will be the norm if leaving from the Eastern United States to Thailand.

Thai Air isn’t expected to drop it’s non stop flight from LAX and indeed flights are showing through the summer months…at much higher rates.

Update: The Bangkok Post has reported that Thai
Airways Officials have indeed suspended flights from NYC as of July
1st. They maintain that the direct flight from LAX will continue but
with a reduced flight schedule. The LAX-Bangkok route will now only be
in service five days a week instead of the previous seven day a week
schedule.

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