BANGKOK, 26 March 2018: Bemoaning the fact that Thailand’s aviation was curtailed by a ICAO red flag up until mid last year, Thai AirAsia X now says it might consider expansion long-term possibly to Europe.
The official news channel of Routes Asia 2018 held in Brisbane, last week, interviewed the airline’s CEO, Nadda Buranasiri, who claimed that in five years he hoped the airline would fly to destinations in Europe.
Routes Asia quoted the airline CEO saying; “We haven’t been able to grow for the past two years because of Thailand’s red flag. So this is going to be the year that we start expanding, but in a profitable way.”
The airline will add three new aircraft this year taking the count from six to nine.
The new aircraft and the lifting of the red flag allows the airline to consider expansion, although it is cautious as expansion two years earlier didn’t pan out well for the airline. It was hit by heavy losses and was forced to withdraw some services.
This time round Thai AirAsia X will expand cautiously adding a new nonstop service to Hokkaido in Japan, in April and a daily Bangkok Don Mueang – Sapporo New Chitose route.
Over the next five years, Buranasiri said he expects the carrier will grow its network further across Asia as well as ultimately adding flights to Europe.
Commenting on being profitable, he told Routes Asia: “I learned my lesson in 2016. We expanded too fast in two markets and we failed. I learned that you cannot be aggressive in a market if you don’t understand it.
“Europe is a long-term plan. We’ve been studying the market, but we need to fully understand it.”
(Source: Routes Asia 2018)
