BANGKOK, 2 November 2021: Thailand’s domestic airlines got back to flying once more, 1 November and are hoping that the country’s decision to reopen borders to vaccinated tourists will enable them to restore their networks to pre-Covid-19 era status by the year-end.
Fully vaccinated travellers from 63 so-called “low-risk countries need to wait for just 24-hour in a designated hotel for their Covid-19 test results on arrival in the country. If they test negative they are then free to explore the country. It remains a quarantine of sorts but is a far cry from the 14-day prison-like rules that were enforced earlier in the year.
Thai AirAsia has 10 jets of its fleet of 60 operational now. Bangkok Airways is operating with 13 planes out of a fleet of 38. Most of the flights prior to the 1 November opening date flew travellers to Phuket under the Sandbox rules or served the travel corridor set up between Bangkok and Samui.
Last month, Thai Airways International rolled out a new winter schedule that substantially increases services to cities in Asia and Europe.
Thailand welcomed about 40 million foreign arrivals in 2019. This year the government will be lucky to see arrivals reach 100,000, which is less well down on 2020 that had around 3 million mostly recorded during the first quarter of the year.
