An Airbus A350-900 with full Thai Airways colour scheme with engines installed was spotted at the Airbus facility in Toulouse on January 23, 2023. Four days later the aircraft moved to Bordeaux for more pre-delivery work before a long flight to Bangkok.
In October 2022, Thai Airways announced an agreement to lease two Airbus A350-900s. The airline’s current A350-900 fleet consists of 12 aircraft.
Although the first aircraft is not brand new, it has not flown commercially apart from a few test flights and few other maintenance related flights in August 2019. Sources have claimed that the market value of the aircraft is $110,00,000 and the aircraft is owned by Park Aerospace Holdings.
Although Thai Airways operates a fleet of A380s, the airline plans to shift to newer and more fuel-efficient fleet. The airline is currently reeling under tremendous financial crisis and it needs to keep operating costs low while increasing capacity to meet the demand.