Why Khon Kaen has less flights than Udon

[Dos]

Maybe we can start this as a new thread because it's an interesting question; I look forward to your answer.

After a recent visit to Khon Kaen I did notice that the place has more up-market hotels, trendy nightclubs and restaurants; someone told me that this is due to a large amount of business people passing through.

Q: Why does Khon Kaen not have as many services as Udon does?

1. Khon Kaen does have very good coach services at resonable fares. NCA : Nakorn Chai Air, one of the most famous and reliable in coach services serves this route - about 30 services to BKK daily. Most travellers prefers using these services.

The distance to Bangkok is too short . If the airlines put the fare too low they cannot servive. If they put the price too hight nobody uses their services.

2. The difference in the fares. While VIP class of coach service cost the travellers approximately 400 bht, economy air fare costs approximately 2500bht plus high cost of travelling to the airport.

3. The distance to Bangkok is too short . If the airlines put the fare too low they cannot servive. If they put the price too hight nobody uses their services. This is the reason why Thai Air Asia had to say good bye.

During their services to Khon Kane, they couldn't make any profit out of those flights. TAA only flew to KK for promotion reason. At the beginning it seemed to be that KK traveller were really welcome TAA as most flights were almost full. But look, at that time the fare was 0 (zero) or 99 to 500 plus tax with made up atotal of approximately 499 to 999. This is not a big difference from coach services that's why large number of travellers flew with them.

After the promotion period had passed, the air fair was increased to amost 2000 which led to a significant decreasement in number of passengers. The airline could not stand the loss very long. They stopped serving this routh in less than one year.

Similar ending also happened to Nok Air on BKK - Pitsanuloke route as well. However, there were different reasons behind for Nok Air ending which I will discuss in detail later on as I don't wanna get to far out of the topic of short distance from BKK.

4. The distance to Khon Kaen Airport is quite far. Twelve kilometres is not a short distance for travellers who do not have private tranportation. The fare for limousine or taxi is quite expensive - sometimes the price could go up to 200-300 baht which is unacceptable for me. Some of my Khon Kaen friends are against this idea. They do not agree that the airport is too far. Well, both sides are opinoins. Believe it or not Udon Thani airport is labeled 7km from the city. Doesn't look that far, does it?

5. Some people think the local politicians (or people who have power) do not want any other airlines to fly to Khon Kaen and they won't allow any more airlines to do so because it would destroy some balance in Khonkaen (which they couldn't give me any example of such systems or balance). For me this reason is really weak. They only system that I think could be affected is surely coach services. However, I don't think the impact would be great enough as the target groups are quite different.



In conclusion, from my point of view I would say the most valid reason for Khon Kaen aviation services not being succesful is because they currently have very efficient and adequate coach services.


What do you think?

[Dos]

For those who can read Thai please refer to the link below.
It's the source of what I've discussed above.

http://www.khonkaenlink.com/forum/forum ... PN=1&TPN=1

[Dos]

Thai Airways can still serve Khon Kaen because it cannot avoid doing so, regardless if it could make any profit out of the route or not.

There are many many domestic routes that TG serves with the fares lower than the actual costs. That's why it's trying to decrease the loss by giving the routes to it's subsidized airlines like Nok Air, a low cost airline which is meant to be a fighting brand for TG.

And soon Thai Airways will introduce another TG subsidized airways named เอื้องหลวงแอร์ไลน์ (in Thai) and Orchid Airlines (in English). This airlines is going to be a lowfare airline and likely to take part in domestic routes for TG. Some people have said that this new airline would be a reborn of Thai Airways (TH) before merging with Thai Airways International (TG) in 1988. Note that TH has now become the code for Transmile Air.

Please refer to the link below for photos of Thai Airways (TH) - Not Thai Airways International (TG).
http://topicstock.pantip.com/blueplanet ... 24021.html



Regarding the undercost fares, at the time Nok Air began to fly BKK-Pitsanuloke, TG served Pitsanuloke at approx 2200 baht. When Pitsanuloke people heard that a low cost airline would fly to their homes, they expected the fare to be extreamly cheap compared to TG. But unfortunately, Nok Air did not put the price lower than their actual cost. Then it turned out that Nok Air fare was approx 1850baht. People were very much disappointed. Very few passengers understood and used Nok services. Most of them went for TG as the fares were not much different and TG had all onboard services while Nok did not.

In addition, Nok Air was not quite welcome from the management of the province both private and the government bodies. From many occassions, it seemed to be that Nok was thought to be trying to take over TG services and those people think they would not get as good service as they could get from TG. In one meeting between the province and Nok Air, there was even one meeting member from private organisation shouting at Srihapan (Nok Air CMO) saying "get out of my province!"

Both together, Nok Air soon had to pack their stuff back home. Sad heh? I would feel sorry for those passengers who loved Nok Air but their voices were very little.

Now a lot fo passengers from Pitsanuloke are trying to persuade Nok Air to get back to them. However, Nok Air has confirmed that they would not fly to Pitsanuloke in a near future. And people in commercial aviation field also think that none of low cost airlines would dare to do so either.

Khon Kean may be in the same or similar case that the airlines could not make the fares low enough for the name low cost airlines when comparing with coach service fares.

[valentine]

Dos, Your postings on airline travel are quite interesting but do you have to include a huge photo in them? It is taking longer than ever to download the page now. 3 photos the current page, all the same.

[Dos]

Sorry about that I'll remove it.

However, these 3 photos are from the same source; therefore, they will be loaded at once.