THAI ends Los Angeles Flight

Thai Airways International will end its non stop Bangkok - Los Angeles flight on 1st May.
Thai blamed the high price of oil for the cancellation of the service; the airline's longest non stop flight.
(Bangkok Post)

A friend who is a Thai steward tells me that he is not disappointed since in his opinion American passengers are the worst he has ever met.
Fat, pushy, rude, demanding, mean, greedy and loud.
:snorting: "Gimme this, gimme that, I want, I want, I want." :snorting:
Never a please or thank you.

Wow funny how people perceive others eh, I seem to recall that it was only a few weeks ago a some on here were sayingalmost EXACTLY the above about Russians ( rightly or wrongly but we'll not get into that again :-)

I'm sure generally none of us would have said those things about our American friends ( well not to their faces anyway perhaps :-) - isn't it just funny how what we believe to perhaps be acceptable behaviour, just perhaps because our own upbringing etc, can and is perhaps in fact viewed SO differently by other people from other cultures and races, quite interesting I thought.

[cdnmatt]

"Gimme this, gimme that, I want, I want, I want."

Thai BF or American, you mean?

[stevehadders]

There's good and bad people for every nationality.... I have met (the vast majority) very pleasant and polite Americans and a few I wouldn't want to meet again. Being British, and seeing some of the antics of my fellow Brits on holiday (especially in Southern Europe) makes me very thankful that the majority of people dont make "sweeping" judgements

[francois]

The rudest people I have encountered on airlines are Asians mostly old Japanese ladies pushing to the head of the line. The other rude ones are the old crone flight attendants on Delta Airlines. I recall male flight attendants on Thai Air as not very pleasant.

[pong]

it is a public secret in the airline-''industry'' that on many of those national carriers the posts for steward/ess/es etc are for the rich kids of rich parents. These are not used at all to serve people-but rather to be served themselves by their many slaves/servants. And it may be a big disppointment for them to discover that many of the pax are from less hi-so as they think of themselves to be and yet they still are expected to serve them well.
Had a flight back to EUR a few days ago on OMANair (for me the 1st-but have flown about any other Gulfie airline by now) and they have mainly hai attendants- made it inded a very nice flight, even though leg 1 was full up. Speak Thai to them and they run even harder.

[fedssocr]

Well, they'll still be flying to the US. It just won't be a non-stop as they are finally ditching the A345s. It's just going to be a connecting service via ICN.

[anonone]

Well, they'll still be flying to the US. It just won't be a non-stop as they are finally ditching the A345s. It's just going to be a connecting service via ICN.

Horrible timing though, as far as the schedule goes. There are much better 1-stops than the Thai service through ICN.

[francois]

it is a public secret in the airline-''industry'' that on many of those national carriers the posts for steward/ess/es etc are for the rich kids of rich parents. These are not used at all to serve people-but rather to be served themselves by their many slaves/servants. And it may be a big disppointment for them to discover that many of the pax are from less hi-so as they think of themselves to be and yet they still are expected to serve them well.
Had a flight back to EUR a few days ago on OMANair (for me the 1st-but have flown about any other Gulfie airline by now) and they have mainly hai attendants- made it inded a very nice flight, even though leg 1 was full up. Speak Thai to them and they run even harder.

Very enlightening, Pong; I could not have said it better.

[christianpfc]

Thai blamed the high price of oil for the cancellation of the service; the airline's longest non stop flight. (Bangkok Post)
That doesn't make much sense, blaming the price of oil. All airlines pay higher for oil than in the past. If there is a need for this connection, people will fly indirect, which will be longer, consume more oil, and be more expensive! Thai airways just have to increase the prices.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A340 (the airplane Thai uses for this connection) says:


The A340 is used on long-haul, trans-oceanic routes due to its immunity from ETOPS; however, with reliability in engines improving, airlines are progressively phasing out the type in favour of more economical twinjets such as the Boeing 777.
But still, direct connection is shorter and saves airport fees, so it should be cheaper than with a stop.

[anonone]

The issue with the airbus 340-500 is the horrible fuel efficiency with this particular sub-type of the plane. It has great range, allowing it to fly your non-stop distance, but it burns a lot of fuel doing it.

As fuel price increases, it costs more to operate at a greater pace than the other, more fuel efficient planes.

I am not surprised that Thai ended the BKK-LAX route. I doubt they were making any money with it, and more probably were losing money with every flight.

I like flying Thai Airways and do so occasionally, though never out of LAX. I wish they timed their schedule better for their one USA flight now that they connect through ICN.

[francois]

It seems that Thai Air has also cancelld their Premium Economy seating in the LAX - BKK flight.

[aot871]

THai are putting these aircraft on the london to bkk flts untill the arrival of their a380s

[cameroncat]

They lost money on each 340-500 flight form L.A. Besides the fuel, they only carried 220 passengers and almost no cargo (which is a big revenue source for airlines). Unfortunately, the new flight, besides having terrible times, will have no premium economy. Back to EVA for me..

[paulo15]

THai are putting these aircraft on the london to bkk flts untill the arrival of their a380s

No they're not... Thai replaced the 744s on the london route with 346s not 345s in January in order to retrofit the 747s. The 346s have no PE configuration which was only available on the LAX-BKK route. Thai are in fact selling the 345s as they are not fuel efficient and will sell the 346s when the 380s come online
Cheers

[cameroncat]

I read that Thai still can not find a buyer for the A34-500's and will park them and write them off. Seems a waste of a nice plane...

[stevehadders]

true...but who is going to buy them with current fuel prices? Answer = nobody

[rincondog]

Any airline needing a ultra long range aircraft will probably use a 777-200LR. It has slightly greater range even than the 340-500 and even more importantly can carry more passengers which makes it a much more economically viable aircraft.