BANGKOK: Thai Airways International will resume international flights on 37 routes starting Aug. 1, one month later than originally planned.
The national flag carrier plans resumption of services on 26 routes, including to and from Paris, New Delhi, Guangzhou and Frankfurt.
On Aug. 2, services will resume on the Beijing, Brisbane and Brussels routes, followed by those to Auckland and Jakarta the following day.
The timing of resumption of flights to Milan, Rome, Moscow, Vienna, Stockholm, Sapporo, Fukuoka, Sendai, Kathmandu, Oslo and Colombo are yet to be announced.
Meanwhile, THAI’s sister company, Thai Smile Airways, will resume operations of all domestic routes on June 19.
The ailing national flag carrier is now under court sanctioned bankruptcy protection and is undergoing a process of rehabilitation.
Thailand’s Tourism and Sports Minister Pipat Ratchakitprakarn disclosed that, during the first five months of this year, there were 690,000 tourist arrivals, a drop of 59.97 percent, or 10 million fewer than during the same period last year.
Revenues from tourist arrivals for the same period dropped 489 billion baht (US$15.8 billion), or 59.57 percent, to about 332 billion baht.
Domestic journeys in the same period were recorded at 40.1 million, representing a sharp drop of 58.19 percent, while revenues from domestic tourism also dropped 57.86 percent to about 191 billion baht.
