Bangkok Airways Co., Ltd. is a regional airline based in Chatuchak District, Bangkok, Thailand.^[1] It operates scheduled services to destinations in Thailand, Cambodia, China, Laos, Maldives, Burma, India and Singapore. Its main base is Suvarnabhumi Airport, Bangkok.^[2]

History

The airline was established in 1968 as Sahakol Air operating air-taxi services under contract from Overseas International Construction Company (OICC) an American construction company, United States Operations Mission (USOM) and a number of other organisations engaged in oil and natural-gas exploration in the Gulf of Thailand. It began scheduled services in 1986, becoming Thailand's first privately-owned domestic airline. It re-branded to become Bangkok Airways in 1989. The airline is owned by Dr Prasert Prasarttong-Osoth (92.31%), Sahakol Estate (4.3%), Bangkok Dusit Medical Services (1.2%) and other shareholders (2.19%). It has 1,903 employees and also wholly owns subsidiary airline Siem Reap Airways.^[2]

It built its own airport on Koh Samui, which was opened in April 1989 and offers direct flights between the island and Chiang Mai, Hong Kong, Krabi, Pattaya, Phuket and Singapore.^[3] The airline opened its second airport at Sukhothai Province in 1996. A third airport was built in Trat Province, opening in March 2003 to serve the burgeoning tourism destination of Ko Chang.

The airline made its first foray into jet aircraft in 2000, when it started adding Boeing 717s to its fleet. Up until then, Bangkok Airways had flown propeller-driven aircraft, primarily the ATR-72. It had also operated the De Havilland Canada Dash 8, the Shorts 330 and for a short time, a Fokker F100. The carrier added another jet, the Airbus A320, to its fleet in 2004.

Bangkok Airways plans to order widebody aircraft as part of its ambition to expand its fleet. It wants to add its first widebody jets in 2006 to serve longer-haul destinations such as London, India and Japan and is looking at Airbus A330, Airbus A340 and Boeing 787 aircraft. In December 2005, Bangkok Airways announced it had decided to negotiate an order for six Airbus A350-800 aircraft in a 258-seat configuration, to be delivered to the airline commencing 2013 but the order of the aircraft was cancelled in 2011 due to the further delay of the Airbus plane.^[4][5]

In 2007, President and CEO of Bangkok Airways Prasert Prasarttong-Osoth received from Kaewkwan Watcharoethai, the Royal Household Secretary-General, the royal warrant appointment to display the Garuda emblem.^[6]

Destinations

Codeshare agreements

Bangkok Airways has codeshare agreements with the following airlines:

Fleet

The Bangkok Airways fleet consists of the following aircraft (as of January 2010):

Former Fleet

• Boeing 717-200

Incidents and accidents

• On 7 December 1987, Sahakol Air Hawker Siddeley HS 748 Series 2A (registration HS-THH), was damaged beyond repair after it overran the runway on landing at Udon Thani Airport (UTH) with no fatalities.^[7]
• On 21 November 1990, Bangkok Airways flight 125 de Havilland Canada DHC-8-103 crashed on Koh Samui while attempting to land in heavy rain and high winds. All 38 people on board perished.^[8]
• On 4 August 2009, Bangkok Airways Flight 266, operated by an ATR-72 between Krabi and Koh Samui skidded off the runway, killing one of the pilots. The 68 passengers were evacuated.^[9] Of the passengers evacuated, 6 sustained serious injuries while another 4 were treated for minor injuries.^[10]

References

External links

• Bangkok Airways official website
• Bangkok Airways Fleet
• Fah Thai inflight magazine