Thai Airways International (TG, Bangkok Suvarnabhumi) is looking at resuming flights to the United States later this year following its last service to Los Angeles International in October of 2015. At the time, the carrier said the route's termination was part of its cost-cutting and restructuring programme.
However, during a press conference last week in which he announced an anticipated return to profitability this month, president Charamporn Jotikasthira said: "If we can achieve [improved] utilisation of aircraft and capacity, we should be able to increase capacity by 2-3% next year and also resume flights to the U.S. in late 2016 or early 2017."
In December of last year, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) downgraded Thailand's safety rating from Category 1 to Category 2. The move allows any Thai carriers already serving the United States, to continue doing so, but forbids them from opening up any new routes. As such, it is uncertain how Thai Airways would navigate the ban and resume flights to the United States.
Thailand's aviation sector has come under intense international scrutiny after the ICAO formally instituted a Serious Safety Concern (SSC) against the country in July last year for failure to adequately address shortcomings identified during a Universal Safety Oversight Audit Programme (USOAP) inspection in January 2014.
