Thai Airways To Remove 747 From Sydney + Other Australia Route Cuts

by Zac George
a plane taking off from a runway

Just like all airline airlines around the world, serious decisions need to be made on which routes the airlines continues to operate and don’t wish to. In these types of events, it’s hectic at the airline and stress levels are at an all-time high, and there’s not much that can be done to prevent it.

Thai Airways has been a little quiet in terms of announcing changes, but luckily there’s websites and places to find information pretty quickly. Airlineroute reports that the Bangkok based carrier has recently made some pretty significant changes to their schedules and it even means the removal of a particular aircraft on one of the Australian routes.

Thai Airways To Remove 747 From Sydney + Other Australia Route Cuts

a white and purple airplane flying in the sky

Thai Airways 777-300ER

  • The removal of the 747 service from Sydney

This one is unfortunate, but all good things must come to an end. Thai will sadly remove the 747 from operating Sydney services and will instead replace it with the 777-300ER aircraft as well as reducing the services from 7 weekly down to 5 weekly. Only a few weeks ago I got to fly on the aircraft and first and I’m glad I was able to get the chance to do so before it was too late. The review on that flight will be available in the coming days.

  • Brisbane will be receiving one less frequency

Brisbane will also be saying goodbye to one weekly flight with the number of services going from 4 down to 3 weekly. The flights will continue to be operated by the 777-200ER aircraft.

  • Melbourne will lose two of their weekly services

Melbourne currently has 14 weekly services, but from the 29th of March, there will be 12. This route, in particular, is operated by the latest passenger offerings from Thai as the A350-900 operates the route. I had previously flown the route when it was operated by a 772 and can say the A350 is a massive upgrade.

  • Perth will lose over half of their flights

Perth will be the hardest city hit with capacity reductions with the number of services decreasing from seven down to three from the 29th of March. The route will continue to be operated by an A330-300 aircraft.

These cuts don’t come as much surprise as virtually every other airline is doing the same thing. It’s always sad to see routes being taken away, but it’s also especially sad to see an aircraft being removed from a service altogether. Sydney and Tokyo are the only routes for the 747, so I imagine the airline may even look at retiring them due to high operating costs.

Have you flown on a Thai 747 before?

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6 comments

Cambo March 19, 2020 - 2:38 pm

Haneda to BKK was changed to 777-200 last Thursday and I was lucky to fly business class BKK to Sydney on the 747 Monday night.

Zac George March 19, 2020 - 4:12 pm

That’s great you got to fly the aircraft, how was the experience?

Charles Lynch March 19, 2020 - 10:09 pm

The last international 747 service to Sydney…. what a tragedy, these months has been full of tragedies unfortunately, VS 346’s, QF intl groundings (and around the world). Comparable to 2014 when VS pulled out of Sydney along with the UA744’s and KL retired their Md’s

Zac George March 20, 2020 - 11:32 am

Yep. it’s really quite devastating. This will change the aviation landscape for some time.

Nic April 2, 2020 - 10:48 pm

Are these flight changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic or budget cuts on TG end to stop the airline going bankrupt

Zac George April 3, 2020 - 9:21 pm

Both, unfortunately.

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