Will Thailand Become Asia’s Next Aviation Hub?

With air passenger traffic expecting to triple in the Asia-Pacific region over the next two decades, industry experts are now considering Thailand as a potential aviation hub! Thailand is soon to become a great competitor to Singapore. Government agencies, investment organizations and big business organizations in Thailand are ready to invest their resources and effort together through private and public partnerships to make Thailand Asia’s next major aviation hub.

The Development Plan

In February 2017, the Ministry of Transport in Thailand revealed a development plan between 2017 and 2031 split into three phases. The first phase between 2017 and 2021 will basically focus on creating a new maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) center for Thailand Airways. The second phase between 2021 and 2026 will focus on expanding the MRO center. The third and final phase will focus on renovating Thailand’s entire aviation design and manufacturing capabilities.

The Execution

The Board of Investment of Thailand recently invited a group of journalists from all over the world on a four-day tour of Thailand’s involvement in the above mentioned development plan. This is actually a part of a broader plan to develop public and private industrial potentialities around manufacturing embedded electronics, smarter cars, robotics and other corresponding technologies. During the tour, the Board of Investment of Thailand announced a plan to invest around $6 billion into expanding both the runway and aircraft and developing the maintenance capacity at major airports in Thailand serving the big cities in Thailand and Pattaya.

Thailand started to mark them as one of the Asia’s major aviation hubs 50 years ago when the airport was first constructed with the help of the U.S. Air Force to support its involvement in the Vietnam War. During 2014-2016, the number of annual passengers in the Thailand Airport jumped from 16,800 to 75,000. After that, the airport was transitioned into a joint civil-military airport. To support the passenger expansion, Thailand Airport authority has started to complete the terminal two, which is now nearing completion.

Future Core Capabilities

Thai Airways is now busy in finalizing plans for the current MRO facility at the airport and it will soon introduce the use of drones to inspect aircraft fuselages for structural damages. The international carrier is also willing to improve the abilities of Thai Airports in terms of preparing the aircraft MRO activities for its own airplanes landing at U-Tapao. Also, repair and overhaul of auxiliary power units (APU) is going to be a future core capability of Thailand’s aviation industry.

Previously, Singapore did an excellent job of making themselves the international hub for all the OEMs and MRO shops. What Thailand has started to do is to create a great place to build and grow airline business, and it will certainly be exciting to watch the future unfold.

Everything You Need To Know About The U.S. Air Traffic System Reform

On February 9th 2017, President Donald Trump held a meeting with U.S. airline and airport authorities to discuss a wide range of topics. The primary agenda of the meeting was to focus on the issues that have divided several segments of the flight operational community over the past few years.

Below we have outlined the most important highlights from the meeting.

FAA Structure Could Change Under the New Administration:

During the meeting on February 9th between aviation executives and President Trump, all airlines stated the need for new management of the FAA’s billion-dollar effort to upgrade the entire air traffic system. They also claimed that a newly formed non-profit corporation could be able to receive the upgrade completed faster and would provide more noticeable benefits to airports as well as airspace users.

Privatization as an Integral Part of the U.S. ATC System:

Privatization has become the latest talk in major media outlets as well as among the aviation leaders to describe the proposed overhaul of the FAA. On the other hand, the supporters of the proposal to restructure the FAA have already mentioned that private companies are used as contractors by the FAA’s Air Traffic Organization (ATO) to staff some of the U.S. Air Traffic Control (ATC) towers.

The Transition Would Take Several Years:

There will be more detailed information available about the proposal to reconstruct the FAA in March, when the administration is likely to release its first annual budget request. The budget may include funding to establish a non-profit corporation responsible for handling air traffic and air traffic modernization deployment. However, it is also true that the funding would not become available until October 2017. As a result, the time required to implement the new structure could be lengthier than other nations that have utilized similar strategies.

User Fees Would Mean a Major Shift in U.S. Air Traffic Operations:

At present, the United States air traffic system is mainly financed by taxpayer dollars and is attached to budget authorizations from lawmakers. One of the major concerns mentioned by the industry advocacy groups in opposition to the proposed reform is that the new nonprofit corporation is going to establish user fees for airspace operators. However, President Trump expressed opposition to this aspect of the proposed reform.

The FAA Has a Major Contribution in Upgrading The Air Traffic System:

One of the most important points for reform expressed by industry groups is that the deployment of NextGen is over budget and is taking too long to be implemented. Also, it doesn’t offer any major noticeable benefits for airspace users. On the other hand, FAA had a major contribution in upgrading Air Traffic system between 2014 and 2016, despite budget uncertainties.

4 Important Factors That Will Be Affecting Airline Budget Considerations for 2017

As author David Allen¹ says, “Much of the stress that people feel doesn’t come from having too much to do. It comes from not finishing what they started,” - the same holds true when it comes to finalizing the budget for your airline company for 2017. If you wait until the end of the year to start budget planning for 2017, you’ve already missed the boat. 2017 has already started with a BANG and it’s the perfect time to look forward to the possibilities and demands that the next financial year will bring for the aviation industry.

Bud(jet)ting: Important factors to include in your 2017 Airline Budget

Airline budgeting is slightly different than the budgeting of many businesses in other industries. In the airline industry, the numbers are purely statistics and percentages, and the available resource production units are aircrafts and routes.

Budget planning is tiresome work since the whole cost centre/locations budget should lead into one single report to arrive on the performance data. You need to analyze the financial numbers by using ratios and airline statistics. Considering the recurrent changes in airline operations nowadays, it makes a lot of sense to have periodical budget reviews.

The airline industry will experience the same remarkable growth as it did in the last year. However, there will surely be some difficulties.

Below, we have highlighted 4 of the most important factors that will be affecting airline budget considerations in 2017:

1. Jet Fuel Cost

Volatility in the jet fuel market poses a risk for airlines. An increase in jet fuel prices lifts the airline industry’s largest input cost. On the other hand, a price decrease, such as that experienced in the last year, can also affect an airline’s budget considerations. Due to the low jet fuel cost, many U.S carriers were enjoying record profits and this will continue in 2017 as well. While finalizing the budget plans for 2017, airlines need to keep in mind that the aviation sector is expected to save $23.6Bn on fuel this year.

2. Emergence of Low-Cost Carriers

Another important factor that is going to affect airline budgeting is the emergence and growth of in-house low-cost carriers within the big names in the airline industry. These airlines have an ability to gain market share without incurring losses and are a competitive force in the industry that must be considered when budgets are created.

3. Continued Passenger Growth

According to a recent statistic published by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the total number of passengers carried on scheduled services reached 3.7 billion in the last year and this was a significant increase over the year before. The number of departures also rose to approximately 35 million globally, and there was also an increase in the world passenger traffic. As air transport carries some 35% of world trade by value, the continuous growth in airline passenger will surely be affecting airline budget in 2017.

4. Asian Countries Will See Huge Growth

If we examine the latest trends in the Asia-Pacific’s civil airline industry, we can understand that these countries are profiting most from the rise in domestic and international air passenger numbers. Keeping this in mind, Asian airlines and their increasing passenger numbers will surely be driving the global aviation markets in 2017.

1. Source: http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/575493-much-of-the-stress-that-people-feel-doesn-t-come-from 

Find out how enabling the ameliaRES and ameliaCARGO software platforms across your fleet will help you to ensure the best possible outcomes for your airline business!

 

How Automated Passenger Reservation Systems Can Help Airlines

Running a profitable airline business demands successful streamlining and a simplified passenger travel experience with limited operation costs. When airlines are poorly managed, they see not only a loss in profits but also higher occurrences of flight delays, long check-in queues and frustrated travellers.

 Integrated airline reservation software was created to help airlines solve and avoid these problems by storing, retrieving, and reserving information related to air travel business transactions, resulting in happier airline employees and happier passengers. 

Advantages оf Autоmаtеd Passenger Rеѕеrvаtіоn Sуѕtеms

➢     Eаrlу Check In

An Airline Reservation system аllоwѕ airline passengers tо check-in up tо 24 hоurѕ bеfоrе thеіr flіght, ѕеlесt ѕеаts, and рrіnt bоаrdіng раѕѕеѕ frоm the comfort of their hоmе. This is beneficial not only to the passengers who are offered a much smoother and more convenient travel experience, but also to airlines. Airlines are able to save money, by having less staff on site at the airport, and passengers are happy because they are able to skip long lines and ultimately cut down on their time spent at the airport.

➢     Cоnvеnіеnсе for Airline Passengers

Being аblе tо bооk аіrfаrе оnlіnе mеаns airline customers саn dо it аnу time of thе day, wherever they аrе. They саn bооk a flіght at hоmе, whіlе they'rе in thе office аnd even when they're on their way to the gym, vіа a laptop оr a ѕmаrtрhоnе. Bу purchasing a flіght online, airline customers also dоn't hаvе to wоrrу about fіndіng a parking ѕроt аt thеir trаvеl agent’s office, wаіtіng for service оr fееlіng рrеѕѕurеd tо bооk a flight оn thе ѕроt wіthоut thinking іt thrоugh fіrѕt. 

➢     Complete Solution for Airlines

Modern day passenger reservation software provides a complete hosting solution for airlines. The manufacturers of these types of software use the latest state of the art technology to provide airlines with a system to manage all their flight reservations on a robust platform which is flexible and can be adapted to any style of airline. The modern airline passenger reservation system also offers a secure and stable solution. They are ideal for the airline industry since it often requires a large number of customers to access and use the system simultaneously. With all users of the system accessing the software at all times, it can even help the airline company to keep a track of the inventory and passenger booking in a real time environment.

➢     Saves On The Cost of Appointing Additional Staff

The modern passenger reservation systems are built with a customer friendly approach that is always easy to use and understand. These types of software provide modern, flexible reservations as well as inventory management solutions for airlines including call centre, travel agency, internet, GDS etc. By implementing this automated passenger reservation system, airlines can ensure that reservations can be generated only by their own airline staff, without the need of appointing additional staff to look after the passenger reservation process.

➢     Additional Benefits

An airline company can also use the reservation software to make flight arrangements, view current reservations, and check passenger lists, as well as many other functions, literally by sitting in front of a computer.

Basically, an airline reservation system provides modern, flexible reservations for airlines. The standard airline passenger reservation systems, available in the market, offer a very easy to use interface for rapid passenger check-in and real time access to reservations.