THAI CEO vows action over faulty seats
Thai Airways International CEO Chai Eamsiri has pledged to fix faulty seats on some planes while blaming a spare parts shortage for the problem that has upset some customers.
Mr Chai told reporters yesterday that the airline had not sat idly by and that it had been repairing defective seats following complaints from some of its passengers. Some of the faulty seats have been fixed while others are waiting for parts from manufacturers, he said, adding that there is a parts shortage due to high demand, with other airlines experiencing the same problem.
Mr Chai said the flag carrier discovered faulty seats in four of its A350 aircraft and another four in a Boeing 777-200ER. He said one of the measures to deal with the issue was to delegate planes with problematic seats to specific routes and prevent the faulty seats from being used.
The CEO’s public comments were the first from THAI executives since Treerat Sirinchantaropas, the New Energy Plus Solutions CEO, posted a Facebook message on April 28 complaining that the reclining mode on his business class seat had malfunctioned.
Ground staff had earlier told him about the defect as he walked to board the aircraft and handed him 5,500 baht in an envelope as compensation in exchange for keeping the issue to himself.
Mr Treerat, a former Pheu Thai member and then Thai Sang Thai member, declined the offer and posted his seating woes on Facebook with a pledge to sue the airline and to petition the house committee on transport to look into defects of the entire fleet.
Meanwhile, THAI reported a firstquarter consolidated net profit of 2.43 billion baht, an 80.7% drop from 12.5 billion baht in the same period last year. Revenue rose 10.7% but expenses rose 22.5% in the period, it said.