Thai Airways to resume normal flight schedules from Saturday

A passenger searches for his delayed baggage from Thai Airways International flights at Suvarnabhumi Airport, after heavy rain and flooding disrupted the airline's ground operations, on Tuesday. (Photo: Reuters) Thai Airways International (THAI) will return to its normal flight operation mode on Saturday after severe floods in greater Bangkok resulted in stranded passengers and baggage.

THAI announced on Thursday night the resumption of full operations from Saturday as it was mobilising personnel to ensure readiness.

The number of its cancelled flights has sharply reduced from almost 40 during the peak of the flooding in greater Bangkok to 15 on Thursday and nine on Friday.

The airline has sharply scaled down ground and air services citing insufficient staff due to the floods that kept them at home. The decision led to chaos as passengers were stranded at Suvarnabhumi International Airport or were unable to travel, while some 10,000 pieces of luggage and cargo piled up at the airport due to staff shortages.

The airline’s chaos due to the sudden flood came less than two weeks after Thai climbed up the Skytrax global rankings, including the rise in the airport services category to seventh from 11th last year.

The airline was strongly criticised by the government and passengers for failing to cope with the crisis to keep the service afloat or at least minimise the impacts.

Transport Minister Phiphat Ratchakitprakarn said on Thursday the carrier had processed all stranded passengers and will try to return baggage to all passengers by Saturday night.