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Thai Smile to Launch Bangkok-Kaohsiung Service
4th Apr 2017
Thai Smile Airways is planning to venture into Taiwan and capitalize on the fact that more and more Thais are choosing to visit the small island nation and spend their holidays there. The budget carrier is planning to start flying between Bangkok and Kaohsiung in the second half of this year. However, the exact timetable has not been set just yet.
Its parent company Thai Airways International (THAI) flew the same route from 1990 until 2004, when it discontinued it. This led to some speculations that Thai Smile will simply take over the service its parent company used to offer.
Thai Smile thought about offering the Bangkok-Kaohsiung route before, very soon after it started operating back in 2012, but nothing came out of that plan.
If this time Thai Smile does start flying to Taiwan, the airline will have some serious competition in the form of China Airlines, which currently holds the biggest market share in this route and will not likely give it away without a fight.
Still, with the Thai Travel Agents Association (TTAA) projection that the number of visitors from Thailand to Taiwan could double to 360,000 this year, this is an opportunity for growth Thai Smile does not want to miss on.
In 2016, 195,640 Thai’s visited Taiwan, which was 60 per cent more than the year before.
The increased number of Thai visitors to Taiwan was in great part helped by a one-year visa waiver program for Thai visitors, which started in August, 2016. This visa free treatment was a part of the Tsai Ingwen government’s efforts to build a stronger relationship with the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and India and reduce the country’s dependence on China.
According to the statistics, the number of arrivals from Thailand between August and December last year went up 81 per cent from the same period the year before. In addition, the number of visitors for the first two months of this year also increased by over 90 per cent from the same period in 2016.
The visa free program expires in July, but it is widely expected that the Taiwanese government will extend it.
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