Thai Airways looks like it might go out of business. Worth status matching?
 

Looks like Thai Airways has yet to turn a profit. I recently got my gold status on ROP (Dec 18) and want to keep it with *A. Currently I have 42,400k award status miles (Which means only 7k ish to renew the status) and I have always had the thought at the back of my mind on what would happen if TG went out of business.

Should I consider status matching with TK to get Miles&Smiles Elite? (TK*G) Has anyone else with *G tried to status match with Miles&Smiles? Already read the status matcher website which seems to be legit.

Thank you all

Your post made me Google it. Nothing I could find in English-language media to suggest that a liquidation is imminent. Lots and lots of articles about financial struggles and potential bankruptcy stretching back many years, but nothing to suggest that flights are going to be halted in the next few hours/days.

The Thai government will never allow TG to go bust i.e. thai politicians and management loosing face and no VIP treatment with other carriers will make TG survive despite being unprofitable.

There are other ill managed airlines that never seems to turn a profit that manages to stay alive. Alitalia, Malaysian, Garuda, Aerolineas Argentinas all spring to mind. The key factor is a government willing to foot the bills.

It is a state-owned enterprise - it will not be allowed to go under.

But Air NZ has not continued to be mismanaged? Or have I not followed their trends enough? We need more extended periods of losses and government underwriting before they can join the club. :D

Is the Ansett Australia demise is still being blamed on Air NZ by the Australians? I think Ansett was a case of serious mismanagement of an airline that did actually lead to its demise. Maybe Air NZ did rock the boat a bit extra, but they certainly did not change the inevitable outcome....

Thai Airways is majority-owned by the Thai government through shares held by the Ministry of Finance. Turning a profit is desirable but not necessary.

Change in management: Probably overdue although nothing will change. Change in shareholder structure: Maybe. Going out of business: Should have a long time ago. but won't.

Without government support, Thai would have shut down or at least drastically changed a long time ago. The fact that they never have speaks to their complacency and many of their problems now.

If you just look on Wikipedia, Google, or Google news there have been more changes and restructurings than I could keep track of, but I from an article last September, I found these wonderful statements:
(their quotation marks, not mine) and
so I guess that's a reason to be concerned :rolleyes:

Besides 2016 when there was actually a tiny net profit, for many years the airline has been operationally profitable, with impairment losses on aircraft being the principal factor leading to net losses on paper. The cash position was actually fairly stable, which should be what matters in determining whether an airline can continue operating. Recently, however, the airline has had operational losses. My guess is this is a result of parked aircraft (e.g. 787s) which has led to a cut in capacity, at the same time that fixed costs remain. As a result, revenue dropped and expenses didn't move all that much (decreased just a little). The cash position is still alright, so I'm not all that worried. Thai definitely needs to get its aircraft back up in the air to bring that revenue back up. I will start to worry when Thai has difficulty getting loans or other financing and the cash position starts to slide.

How likely to get a status match anyway - from one Star Alliance airline to another???

NZ wouldn’t match my 2 years of ROP Gold validity period for even 1 year of NZ Gold.

Somewhat annoying as NZ refuses to allow me to use my TG*G status for lounge entry if I have my NZ number in the booking to accrue miles/SP to NZ.

They used to allow this, and there are even two fields in the system (FQTV for accrual and FQTS for status) - and other *A carriers do.

So basically NZ offers no *A benefit to me as a TG*G if I want to accrue to NZ.