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Thai-Laos Seat Quotas Just Got a lot Better
10th Oct 2016
Looking to improve trade, tourism and investment between themselves, Thailand and Laos PDR agreed to increase their weekly airline seat quotas.
Last week, Thai and Laos officials gave a green light for the revised Thai-Laos agreement, effectively increasing the ceiling on sea capacity on routes between these two countries to up to 14,500 seats per week, depending on the route.
The two countries believe this agreement will allow carriers registered in both Thailand and Laos to add more flights on routes that have been restricted for years.
According to the agreement, both Thailand and Laos PDR will have the right to adopt ASEAN open skies at a speed they are comfortable with. This will allow them to protect their national carriers, something Laos have been doing up until recently with Laos Airlines and its reluctance to allow LCCs to fly to Luang Prabang and Vientiane. The country has, however, opened its doors to lowcosters recently, and has given AirAsia permission to fly to both destinations.
Seat Capacity Ceiling Increased 10x
In particular, the seat ceiling on the Bangkok-Luang Prabang route will increase ten times, from 1,000 to 10,000 seats per week. On the other hand, the capacity ceiling between Bangkok and Vientiane will go up from 2,100 seats weekly to 14,500. As for other customs and immigration enabled airports, seat capacity quotas have increased from 450 to 2,100 per week.
At the moment, three airlines from Thailand – Thai Airways International, Thai AirAsia and Bangkok Airways - operate to Laos, but two more – Nok Air and Thai Smile – want to apply for traffic rights, now that the weekly seat quotas to Laos have increased.
A Nok Air executive said the LCC has identified Laos as a priority destination, but seat capacity limits have hindered this in the past.
He said:
As we bring in new aircraft and resolve the pilot shortage by hiring foreign pilots on two-year contracts, we can review our expansion plans in the region in 2017.
When it comes to Laos-registered airlines, two fly to Thailand – Laos Airlines and Central Airlines.
Per figures from the Ministry of Tourism and Sports, 1,233,138 Laotians visited Thailand in 2015, which was 17 per cent up from 2014 when the number was 1,053,984. At the same time, Laos has been a popular destination for Thai travellers, as 2,321,352 visited the country in last year (13.58% up from 2,043,761 in 2014).
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