BANGKOK, 23 March 2020: Two of Thailand’s airlines are suspending international flights while Thai Lion Air announced it would ground its entire fleet in Bangkok as travel demand to and around Thailand plummets.
Both Thai AirAsia and Bangkok Airways announced they were suspending all international flights at the weekend following service cuts announced last week. But at least for the immediate future, they are still flying domestic services.
Bangkok Airways made the announcement 21 March on its Facebook page rather than through press releases. It described the international flight cuts as a temporary suspension that would start 22 March “until further notice.”
Domestic services continue, but there are some reductions in the number of daily flights, and the airline has cancelled services to Chiang Rai.
Thai Lion Air was the first airline to announce it will suspend all flights both domestic and international from 25 March to 30 April 2020. It will see the airline ground 17 planes and lay off hundreds of cabin attendants.
Blaming the situation on the Covid-19 outbreak the airline says it will resume normal services on all routes from 1 May onwards, but that timeline could change considering the surge of Covid-19 cases in Thailand that soared to 600 on Sunday in just a few days following two weeks of reporting a relatively stable count of 40 to 50 cases.
Thai AirAsia confirmed it was halting all international flights from 22 March to 25 April 2020 to comply with the current Covid-19 epidemic control measures.
The airline says it will offer passengers the opportunity to rebook flights later in the year but not exceeding 180 days from the time of the original booking.
They can also store the fare as a credit that can be used to buy a fare before the end of the year.
However, reaching out to the airline is not so easy. The airline uses a virtual assistant or bot that replaced call centres and help-desk options some months back and customer response is less than favourable. Complaints are piling up that the bot is overloaded and cannot process requests, leaving passengers with just one alternative. They have to visit the airline’s airport office and file a request for a refund or fee-free change to staff.
