Thai Airways International has just presented a rehabilitation plan designed to enable it to return to profit from 2016. The plan includes retiring 22 aircraft, slowing down the delivery of new aircraft, reducing the number of employees and, above all, restructuring the network by abandoning loss-making routes. In March, this resulted in the discontinuation of flights to Moscow, the discontinuation of one of the airline's two daily flights to London, and in September the closure of the Bangkok-Madrid route.
Now it's Malaysia Airlines' turn... The carrier has made an official announcement concerning the discontinuation of its daily Frankfurt-Kuala Lumpur flight, a historic route for the airline, which has been present in the German financial metropolis since 1977. However, for the past three years it has been facing increasing competition from Gulf carriers and Lufthansa, which has been operating a daily non-stop service since this winter.
The reduction in frequencies by Thai Airways and Malaysia Airlines could in fact accelerate Garuda Indonesia's growth in Europe. A few days ago, the airline's new president, Arif Wibowo, told the Indonesian media that he was seriously considering resuming flights to Paris and Frankfurt, routes abandoned when the airline was restructured at the end of the 1990s. The carrier could use one of the three new Boeing 777-300ERs delivered from July onwards. Paris could be served at the end of the summer, while service to Frankfurt could begin for the winter season. There is still the question of whether the flight will be non-stop, as the runway at Jakarta International Airport is unable to accommodate a B777 at full capacity for long-haul flights.
