A320 NEO, B737 MAX Fleet Upgrade No Longer in Bangkok Airways’ Plans

17th Jun 2016

According to the latest reports Bangkok Airways is moving away from its initial plan to upgrade its fleet with new generation jetliners such as Boeing 737 MAX or Airbus A320 NEO. The SET-registered carrier said it has decided not to purchase or lease the new single-aisle aircraft due to the fact it will not be able to fully take advantage of the benefits that they offer.

One of the reasons for this is that the Thai-registered airline will be focusing on short-haul regional and domestic flights, most of which are less than two hours long. In order to benefit on fuel savings that these two jetliners offer, the airline’s flights would have to be longer than that.

Bangkok Airways President Puttipong Prasarttong-Osoth said in an interview for local papers:

Our jet flights are mostly within the range of one to one-and–a-half hours, so we won’t be able to benefit from fuel efficiency these modern aircraft have to offer.

Bangkok Airways Staying With “Classic” A320s, A319s and ATR-72s

By scraping its plan to buy the new-gen jetliners, the Asia's Boutique Airline will remain with “classic” A320 aircraft and A319, of which it has 20 in its fleet. This is also supplemented with another 13 turbo-prop ATR 72s.

The airline will get a delivery of two more ATR 72s (600 series) at the end of this year, while another one of these planes is scheduled for delivery in 2017. This will complete the carrier’s order of nine of these aircraft from the French-Italian manufacturer.

As part of its strategy to lower capital costs, Bangkok Airways will buy pre-owned, instead of brand-new aircraft from Airbus.

Bangkok Airway’s Decision Makes Sense Economically

The decision not to buy new A320 NEO or Boeing 737 MAX is a sound and logical one, given the carrier’s focus on domestic and short-haul regional routes. In addition, with the fuel prices at only US$60 per barrel, it would be very difficult to fully benefit from these planes’ fuel efficiency.

Putting that in perspective, the high capital cost associated with these planes would also not allow the carrier to find an economically-viable reason right now to make this purchase.

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• Bangkok Airways

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