Thai Airways to add Indonesian flights

Thai Airways to add Indonesian flights

JAKARTA (JP): Thai Airways International will start a new
service route this year linking Bangkok, Jakarta, and Sydney, the
company announced yesterday.

The airline's general manager for Indonesia, Sarieng
Maneelert, said the new route would start Oct. 26 and would be
served by two Airbus A300-600s.

"Each of the flights, TG985 and TG986, will fly the route four
times a week," Maneelert said.

TG985 will fly Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays, and
TG986 on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.

Both planes had 247 seats, 201 of which would be economy
class, he said.

The new routes are in addition to the airlines 12 weekly
flights linking Jakarta and Bangkok, Thailand and three flights
linking Surabaya, East Java and Bangkok via Denpasar, Bali.

Maneelert said he was optimistic Thai airlines' prospects in
Indonesia this year were good, especially with Southeast Asian
Games in Jakarta in October.

He said the airline expected its load factor on the Indonesia
route to rise to 75 percent this year from 70 percent last year.

Three carriers, Garuda Indonesia, Qantas, and Ansett
International, currently link Jakarta and Sydney, Australia.

Thai Airways joined the Star Alliance last May along with
Lufthansa, United Airlines, Air Canada, Scandinavian Airlines
Systems, and Brazil's Varig Airlines.

The alliance works on common brand marketing and advertising
and to intensify the coordination of routes and shared-code
flights in which passengers can be passed on from one airline to
the other.

Maneelert said the five airlines in the alliance were working
to create unified standards.

He said three other airlines from Japan, South America, and
Africa might join the alliance. He refused to name the airlines.
(das)