Introducing Thai Smile

22nd Sep 2012

Thai Aiways, in recent years, is losing its domestic market share by more than 30 percent to the low cost carriers. It used to snare a sizable 70% of the market share but with the advent of the many budget airlines serving the same routes, its share has gradually slid down to its present size which is approximately 40%.

However, THAI could not compete directly with those LCCs in terms of ticket prices since they want to keep their brand name as a premium airline. This results to considerable decrease in revenue for the flag carrier which used to be one of the world's most awarded airlines.

As a counter measure, it decided to create a new airline brand that would be able to compete head-on with the LCCs. Thus the Thai Smile (TS) was born. However, instead of offering services familiar to passengers in most budget carriers, Thai Smile tries to position itself apart from the LCC classification. Instead, the THAI management classifies TS as a 'light premium' brand.

Although Thai Airways has a 49% stake in Nok Air, it has no direct participation in its operation unlike in Thai Smile. Essentially, TS and Nok Air compete each other in terms of price and services. However, TS offers a few features that Nok Air, or any other budget airlines for that matter, don't normally provide. Some of these great features include the passengers' ability to choose their seats for free, up to 20 kilograms of check-in baggage for Economy class and 30 kilograms for Business class. On top of that, TS frequent flyers share common privileges those with Thai Airways and vice versa.

The launch of the Phuket-Chiang Mai service is targeted for foreigners as these two destinations are popular to tourists. They expect the route to be at most 60% full on average for the first year.

The airline official said that the service of Thai Smile can be defined as follows: trendy, friendly and worthy.

Trendy, because the plane's interior is tastefully designed targeting younger market with its orange color as its main motif as well as younger flight crew.

Friendly, because passengers will be welcomed with the warmest greetings aboard from the friendliest smile our flight crew could ever give.

Worthy, because every penny passengers will spend is reciprocated with the premium service from the moment they step into the aircraft.

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