Thai Airways International is the national carrier of Thailand. It had originally been founded to serve only international routes in 1960, but was merged with domestic carrier Thai Airways Company in 1988. The airline was Star Alliance founding member and serves more than 70 destinations on five continents. Its fleet consists of around 90 aircraft. Thai Airways was awarded World’s Best Cabin Staff by Skytrax in 2006.
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Thai Airways International was founded in 1960, as a joint venture of Thailand’s state owned domestic carrier Thai Airways Company (70 %) and Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS), which originally held 30 %. The new airline was supposed to serve on international routes.
Flight operations began on May 1, 1960, with Douglas DC-6. Soon, jets like the Convair 990 were introduced and in 1966 Thai became the first Asian carrier operating only jet planes.
Intercontinental flights were started in 1971, when service to Sydney was started. European destinations like Copenhagen, Frankfurt and London followed. North America was added to the route network in 1980.
From 1975 till 1977, SAS sold all of its shares to the Thai government, which made the latter complete owner of Thailand’s biggest employer.
In 1978, the first Airbus reached Thai Airways: the A300 entered service. Only one year later, the first Boeing 747 was purchased.
In 1988, Thai Airways Company and Thai Airways International were merged, forming the present Thai Airways International PCL. The new airline went public in July 1991. The state, however, still owns more than 54 % of Thai.
In 1997, Thai was founding member of Star Alliance, the biggest airline alliance worldwide.
On May 1, 2005, the Airbus A340-500 joined the fleet and a new livery was introduced. Also on the same day, a non-stop Bangkok–New York service was introduced – flight time is around 17 hours in both directions. In October 2006, the route Bangkok–Johannesburg followed. Both routes are operated by Airbus A340s.
Thai Airways was awarded World’s Best Cabin Staff by Skytrax in 2006. The airline serves more than 70 destinations on five continents. The fleet consisted of around 90 aircraft, mostly Airbus and Boeing, with an average age of 10.2 years in 2007.
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