Multi-Sector

I received this information from a usually reliable source today, can anyone confirm or deny this.

Incidently TAM bought all Air Canada's A340-500 as well.

........... apologies if this has been aired before.

M-S

Thai-Kiwi

The aircraft are listed on www.planemart.com.

2 available Oct 2008, 2 avail Jan 2009.

Thai-Kiwi

Some discussion here:

http://www.airliners.net/aviation-fo...n/4033214/1/#1

And listed here too:

http://www.speednews.com/EquipmentRe...&Aircraft=A340

Interesting.....but I'm still hanging out to hear what happens to BKK-AKL....

pueywei

Darn. Oh well.

Grace B

Good to see they're going to be put to good use.

Thai was ever so timid IMHO.

MegatopLover

Is it confirmed? I guess this will really mean no hope of TG keeping the A345's on the LAX route with a technical stop added.

Blackcloud

A great shame they were re-configured and kept to fly such routes as BKK-AKL.
I love the proportionality of the A340-500 but of course that does not make the plane profitable.

MarkXS

With a technical stop they don't need A345s. Last winter they were running A346s with a technical stop 2 or 3 days a week on that route and A345s on the other days, to allow for maint checks on the 345s. 345s would never have been considered for a route with a stop.

Glad I got to ride one of them.

MegatopLover

Yes, I know. The hope I--and many others--expressed was that, having already acquired A345s and determined that ULH operations were unprofitable, TG might find itself unable to sell the dogs and, as a consequence, would deploy them on long-haul services (e.g. nonstop to LAX, technical at KIX on LAX-BKK) just to keep them operational rather than park them in the desert.

Rambuster

What are TAM going to do with them ? Which routes come to mind that would require A345s ?
Are they going to use them for "normal" longhaul operations because they can get them at a (huge?) discount ?

pueywei

It probably wouldn't make much sense to do that anyway.

Heck, I would have tried to wrangle a BKK-SIN-JFK routing. I don't think SIN minds all that much, but the us part might be a bit tricky/lengthy.

BHIL

TAM already operates two 345's that they received from AC. If have seen one of them in FRA and that is "only" a 12h flight from GRU. I guess TAM likes the a/c and especially getting it cheap second hand but still almost new from AC and maybe now also from TG.

filmwill

Has there been any sort of verification of this info yet?

I only ask because I'm baffled by the fact that TG hasn't changed their reservation system yet for October and beyond to accomodate for the new seating layout in the 772 (specifically, far fewer seats than currently available.)

If they knew they had sold the A345s, why on Earth would they continue booking, for instance, C class, at double the capacity ad infinitum for one moment more? Aren't they creating a HUGE backup (and potential mess worse than the JFK debacle) for themselves? I understand that, yes, this is TG we're talking about, and sometimes even asking the question is moot.

Seems to me, though, that maybe they haven't sold them and, until they do, they're planning on keeping the A345s on the schedule.

If not, anyone care to take a guess at what is going on? It's slightly fascinating to see this play out.

JBStuart

I don't think they are selling the seats ad infinitum. There are 30 C class seats on the 772's and 60 on the 345's. About a month ago, I bought a C class ticket round trip LAX-BKK Dec 18-Jan 4. When I selected my seat, there were about 25-26 seats already assigned.

Out of curiosity about the upcoming changes, I checked the Thai Air website a few days later and they had stopped booking C class tickets on that flight. I checked a few other dates around that time and none available. My theory is that while they're still booking C class tickets, but are stopping at 30 instead of 60 to avoid the backup when they announce the change, which they're holding off on a bit longer while they're still trying to clean up the NYC-BKK debacle.

The other clue is that they've completely stopped selling PE seats on any dates after October

UnitedA380

TG will be so happy to get rid of the fuel pigs.