Nonstop Flights From US to Thailand
 

Now that the safety restriction has been removed, how likely is it that even a single carrier will offer nonstop flights from the US to Thailand again, in what timeframe, and what are the most important factors? I keep hearing revenue from biz travelers is what would make a route successful; and many consider Thailand to be more of a leisure destination. Is it true that flights from the US to Thailand were actually dropped not due to the safety classification, but due to the routes not being sufficiently profitable? Sorry if there's already a thread about this; didn't see one here or in the Thai Airways forum.

With all the businesses here-NXP, Seagate, plenty of factory inspectors from the US, etc.-there should be enough business travelers coming to Thailand, but doubt that there are going to be more nonstops from the US. UA stops in HKG before doing BKK. There are plenty of nonstops from Europe and the Mideast. Used to be a good place to buy J tickets but not so much now, occasionally.

I saw an ad for a non stop from Chicago starting in October of this year.

Was TG the airline offering this? 😊

Thanks for sharing this. Which airline? I didn't see any availability from ORD > BKK on Thai Airways for October.

The CEO confirmed in an interview recently that they have no such plans (due to fleet constraints and economics of it all), but also that they were studying the feasibility starting US flights via KIX. This would only be possible when the new orders of planes will start joining the fleet though.

The safety restrictions have nothing to do with actual major safety concerns. Otherwise the FAA themselves would be given a significant safety concern mark by icao. One rule for the major countries and other for smaller countries.

My guess is that any potential direct flight(s) to the states will be to/from Los Angeles, it certainly won't be Chicago, New York, Seattle or even San Francisco.

If it was UA doing it instead of TG, then maybe SFO.

UA of course is doing the fifth freedom flight from HKG this winter as their test to (re-)enter the BKK market and the two UA hubs that will potentially feed into this HKG fifth freedom are indeed LAX and SFO. I doubt there is enough of a business case to make this fifth freedom the long-term goal, but rather they might be trying to get some booking numbers to see if they should indeed be trying to launch LAX or SFO.

I understand UA is starting r/t in October from HKG - BKK and SGN and most US flights to KHG will feed into those flights.

There is an Air Canada YVR-BKK nonstop which I have done before and forgot to mention but it is the only nonstop to North America.

The non-stop TG790/791 BKK-JFK was discontinued in 2008.

IIRC, TG lost more than the cost of 2 345s purchased for the route, all reputedly to serve the Thai princess who was studying in NYC.

And it's seasonal.

They also ran them out of LAX, didn't they?

-David