Plans to create a new national airline to replace Thai Airways, in order (seemingly) to circumnavigate creditors are meeting with significant opposition from employee unions. However with the government refusing to increase its stake in the airline, the issue is firmly a political one.
The Finance Ministry reduced its ownership to 47% in order to make Thai Airways eligible for debt rehabilitation. The airline is now in the next stage of proceedings seeking assistance through the Central Bankruptcy Court to wipe-out some of the 300 billion baht of debt the airline is currently holding.
The unions want the government to re-establish ownership and protect employees. That is clearly not going to happen under the watch of the current government.
Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) finally gets real.
With 14,000 employees and a fleet of 27 aircraft PIA management have finally recognised that you cannot continue in business and make a profit if you have two people doing the job of one. The problem is PIA have around three or four doing the job of one, and hence the news that follows does not go far enough.
PIA is looking to cut its employee numbers by half or around 7,000 as a part of a new restructuring plan. Almost 2,000 employees have already taken up voluntary redundancy packages in the last year, so we can expect a further 5,000 redundancies to come (not good news in this current market for a great many workers).
In addition to cutting staff numbers, the airline will begin fleet and route rationalisation.
Manila and Tokyo routes have been removed and more are to follow with the aim of turning the airline to profit in 2023.
The government is also considering outsourcing the management of the airline to an external private management team. All of this is to put the airline in a position to sell a state by the end of 2024.
Non-core operations such as catering and engineering will be outsourced and ownership of assets like the Roosevelt Hotel in New York will be reviewed (again).