Open Skies policy 'damaging to Thai airlines'

Open Skies policy ‘damaging to Thai airlines’

Wednesday, 28 Oct, 2015 0

Thailand’s ‘open skies’ policy has been damaging to Thai carriers as they are not getting the same reciprocal advantages overseas, an airline executive claims.

Patee Sarasin, chief executive of budget carrier Nok Air says some nations that are supposedly committed to open skies do not offer the same air service rights in their own countries.

"While we fully comply with the open-skies policy, some others that are said to be committed to reciprocation do not," he said.

It’s high time that we started looking at the pros and cons of our open skies, especially as some countries are still using the traffic rights restriction to protect their carriers. Thai authorities should look for means to protect our own airlines."

He cited Gulf countries, South Korea, Laos and Cambodia for restricting Thai airlines’ access to their airspace.

Patee said national carrier THAI Airways had been affected the most, but due to mounting losses had chosen to discontinue many international routes.

Not everyone in the Thai airline industry agrees with Patee’s assessment.

"Let’s be honest. The traffic rights to operate flights to foreign countries rendered by Thailand’s open-skies policy are there for THAI and others to make use of if they choose to," one unnamed airline executive told the Bangkok Post.

This comes at a pivotal time for Thai airlines, as inspectors from the US Federal Aviation Administration are in the country to assess aviation standards once again.

FAA inspectors in July gave Thailand two months to improve operational safety standards or face being downgraded from category 1 to category 2.

If a downgrade occurs it would ban any Thai airline from flying to the US but would also severely damage the reputation of Thai aviation globally.

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Editor for TravelMole North America and Asia pacific regions. Ray is a highly experienced (15+ years) skilled journalist and editor predominantly in travel, hospitality and lifestyle working with a huge number of major market-leading brands. He has also cover in-depth news, interviews and features in general business, finance, tech and geopolitical issues for a select few major news outlets and publishers.