This is amazing reading – link – the airline's management seems to be blaming Airbus' A340-500 for its huge loss. Further down in the story you see this – "The committee questioned whether it was commercially sound to fly Airbus A340-500 and Airbus A340-600 aircrafts on the two loss-making routes as they were extremely energy inefficient." Ouch.

Notice how the blame game starts. The planes were ordered under previous administration, so blame them. Rather than face up to reality, Thai's managers are fearful about large amounts of the airline's shares moving into foreign hands. This is amazing because instead of dealing with the losses head on, the airline's president Apinan Sumanaseni is only concerned he might lose his job under new owners. Given the way the airline has been run, new owners would do the company a favor by changing managers.

So playing the xenophobia card about foreigners is supposed to make the losses go away? There are strong rumors that the A340-500 fleet has been sold to South African Airways – another well run airline (joke). SAA could use the A340-500's long legs to reach the USA non-stop even though Johannesburg is very hot and very high. Cutting the Africa tech-stops will likely save a lot of money and over an hour.

But the plane does have issues with capacity. It has not lived up to its promise of long range flights with about 300 seats. If the rumor of the trade is true, SAA has likely done a "steal" of a deal. One cannot blame them for that. South Africa is experiencing a travel boom and the 747-400s are often too large for US routes but great for London year round. (Johannesburg-London traffic is equal to Singapore-London) If SAA can install over 250 seats on the A340-500s and manage JNB-ORD non-stop, they might be on to something since the capital cost of plane is likely severely discounted.

This is amazing reading – link – the airline's management seems to be blaming Airbus' A340-500 for its huge loss. Further down in the story you see this – "The committee questioned whether it was commercially sound to fly Airbus A340-500 and Airbus A340-600 aircrafts on the two loss-making routes as they were extremely energy inefficient." Ouch.

Notice how the blame game starts. The planes were ordered under previous administration, so blame them. Rather than face up to reality, Thai's managers are fearful about large amounts of the airline's shares moving into foreign hands. This is amazing because instead of dealing with the losses head on, the airline's president Apinan Sumanaseni is only concerned he might lose his job under new owners. Given the way the airline has been run, new owners would do the company a favor by changing managers.

So playing the xenophobia card about foreigners is supposed to make the losses go away? There are strong rumors that the A340-500 fleet has been sold to South African Airways – another well run airline (joke). SAA could use the A340-500's long legs to reach the USA non-stop even though Johannesburg is very hot and very high. Cutting the Africa tech-stops will likely save a lot of money and over an hour.

But the plane does have issues with capacity. It has not lived up to its promise of long range flights with about 300 seats. If the rumor of the trade is true, SAA has likely done a "steal" of a deal. One cannot blame them for that. South Africa is experiencing a travel boom and the 747-400s are often too large for US routes but great for London year round. (Johannesburg-London traffic is equal to Singapore-London) If SAA can install over 250 seats on the A340-500s and manage JNB-ORD non-stop, they might be on to something since the capital cost of plane is likely severely discounted.