CEO Tassapon Bijleveld yesterday said the airline was ready to move all domestic and international flights from Suvarnabhumi Airport to Don Muang but was waiting for a final government decision, which is expected tomorrow.

Tassapon said the airline would follow the government's advice about whether to use Don Muang or Suvarnabhumi but pledged not to separate domestic and international flights, because most of its passengers were foreigners.

This year, Thai AirAsia will launch service from Bangkok to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; Angeles City, the Philippines; Kunming and Shenzhen, China; and southern India.

The airline expects to carry 4.5 million passengers this year.

Thai AirAsia yesterday launched a competition to create a unique Thai design for the exterior of its 40 recently ordered Airbus A320s. The first will be delivered in October, and all 40 aircraft will be part of its fleet by 2013.

The winner, to be announced mid-year, will be given unlimited trips with Thai AirAsia with family members for one year.

The Centre for Asia-Pacific Aviation has noted that Thai Airways International (THAI) has coined its low-cost subsidiary Nok Air its "fighting brand" that will help it overcome the challenges posed by Suvarnabhumi Airport's shortcomings.

THAI plans to expand Nok Air's fleet and transfer virtually all of its domestic services to the carrier, which will compete head to head at Don Muang with other budget airlines.

THAI will focus on international services and continue to operate only a handful of connecting domestic services from Suvarnabhumi.

Peter Harbison, the centre's executive chairman, said one of the arguments used by opponents of budget airlines in Asia was an absence of secondary airports. Bangkok's "experiment" with two airports will reverberate loudly, he said.

Meanwhile, Jetstar looks set to play a similar role for Qantas in the Australian domestic market in response to Tiger Airways' planned incursion.

"Qantas is expected to continue to shrink its mainline domestic service, supplanting the lower-cost Jetstar on more routes - possibly even off-peak services between Sydney and Melbourne," said Harbison.

"Those of Asia's full-service carriers prescient enough to establish budget subsidiaries have the best fighting chance in short-haul markets - domestic and international - that will inevitably be overrun by low-cost airlines' competition across the region."

Suchat Sritama

 The Nation