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Emirates Airline Launches First A380 Airbus Service to Thailand
DUBAI/BANGKOK - The inaugural flight of Emirates Airline’s A380-800, the first airbus to fly to Thailand , touched down at Suvarnabhumi International Airport at 7pm (Bangkok time) on Monday with its full capacity of 489 passengers.
The maiden flight also carried a media delegation, travelling upon invitation from the Tourism Authority of Thailand, or TAT. Richard Vaughan, Divisional Senior Vice-president of Emirates Airline’s Commercial Operation Worldwide, Thai Consulate General Pasan Teparak and TAT Director for Dubai and the Middle East Pramoth Supyen accompanied the delegation.
Richard Vaughan told Khaleej Times that Emirates Airline launched the A380 to meet the increasing demands of tourists coming from the GCC and the Middle East.
He said that the A380 will increase the daily flights of Emirates Airline to Bangkok to five and will further increase seat capacity by 489 in flights servicing that route. “We have three flights of A380 and two flights of Boeing 777. The three flights of A380 alone already carries 1,216 passengers daily.”
Weerasak Kowsurat, chairperson of the TAT board of directors, said that from March 2009 until February 2010, the total number of available airline seats with direct air access from the GCC to Thailand is expected to reach a total of 1,953,520. “This increase translates to an extra 499,608 seats in the year, a considerable increase of 34.4 per cent when compared to the same period a year earlier.”
Kowsurat also said that from January to April 2009 alone, a 21 per cent increase in the number of outbound tourists from Dubai is being registered, and this growing number of visitors to the island country need to be continually addressed to.
“For this, Thailand welcomes the arrival of Emirate Airline’s A380,” he said. “We witness today and congratulate Emirates Airline for bringing the largest aircraft in the world to Thailand.”
He said that the Middle East is a very important market to Thailand’s tourism industry because both expatriates and Arab families in these region are travelling to Thailand in huge numbers on a daily basis.
“The Middle East travellers come to Bangkok for holidays and for medical treatment,” he said.
Chaisak Angkasuwan, Deputy Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Transportation, hailed the growing bilateral relationship between the UAE and Thailand, which brought the Emirates Airline 380 to Thailand.
He said that the Sky Agreement, which was signed in 2004 between UAE and Thailand, paved the way for liberalising the operations of airlines in both countries.
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