Is Bangkok Airways the world's greatest party airline?
The Thai carrier almost seems built to make sure people have a good time
For the hungry revenue manager at Qatar Airways Tower one of the best options was ordering in from Thai Smile. Your favourite airline revenue economist particularly enjoyed the chicken pad king, a fragrant mix of ginger, mushrooms and onions as well as the meat.
Thai Smile was a well-named restaurant. Thailand is known as the land of smiles, apparently the name of an ad campaign to attract tourists decades ago. The people are friendly, the food is good, the hotels are good value. What is not to like?
Looking at the network of Bangkok Airways I can see why their passengers would have big smiles on their faces too. The carrier is probably the greatest party airline in the world.
A party airline, a term coined here on Airline Revenue Economics, is an airline which seems to be focused on it’s passengers having a good time. Groovy funky Virgin Atlantic in London is a good example. Tour operator type carriers like TUI and Thomas Cook (see article) are other examples.
But the thing about Virgin Atlantic is while their marketing is often little wily, many of their passengers are serious-minded business travellers off to meetings in serious-minded places like New York and Lagos. Even fabulous Las Vegas is often just another conference venue.
TUI and Thomas Cook on the other hand are pure leisure carriers. But that does not necessarily make them full-on as party airlines. The core feature of their networks is that many travellers fly somewhere hot to relax in a beach resort or adventure in the mountains. They have a good time. Then they go home.
Bangkok Airways is different. They take people to the resorts, but their network is also structured to keep people on the move from beach to beach and party to party. Let’s see how it works.
Bangkok Airways’s network can be divided into three different route groups
I took a week of schedule data for of 16-22 June 2024, just before the northern summer holidays get going. I found 830 flights a week all around Thailand, with a selection of international markets too.
Thailand’s capital Bangkok is served by two airports - Suvarnabhumi (BKK) and Don Mueang (DMK). Bangkok Airways’s destinations in the rest of the country are:
USM - the beautiful island of Koh Samui (pictured)
HKT - Phuket, another beautiful island
UTP - U-Tapao, gateway to Pattaya’s beaches & entertainment
KBV - Krabi, for national parks, islands and wildlife
TDX - Trat, gateway to Ko Chang & Ko Mak islands
THS - Sukhothai, temple & palace ruins
LPT - Lampang, for elephants
HGN (via LPT) - Mae Hong Son, for hills & hot springs
CNX - Chiang Mai, with mountains & waterfalls
HDY - Hat Yai, for shopping
In the week I studied, Bangkok Airways seems to fly everywhere on it’s destination list apart from U-Tapao out of Suvarnabhumi. There are also services from Don Muang to Koh Samui. The first maps below, generated by the Great Circle Mapper, shows the Thailand domestic network served from these two airports. The rings represent 250mi and 500mi.
The next map shows other domestic routes.
Notice how once you have reached Koh Samui or Phuket you can fly onwards to other popular destinations. This is the genius of Bangkok Airways’s network design - you get to one nice place and then go on to continue your holiday in Thailand with the same airline.
It is no co-incidence that the international route map shows an interesting picture. You would have thought from the airline’s name that it’s flights from major metros Hong Kong and Singapore would fly in to Bangkok. Not so - they actually fly straight into Koh Samui. See the map below:
This is really smart, as flights to Bangkok are competitive from anywhere. Direct flights to Koh Samui on the other hand are desirable for holidaymakers. And Bangkok Airways is ready to offer them not just one island, but many and the rest of Thailand too. Flights into Cambodia and Laos will serve a similar adventure and party backpacking-type traveller mix.
The flights from Hong Kong and Singapore have a sensible mix of codeshares too. There is Cathay Pacific (see article), Qatar Airways (see article) and Thai out of Hong Kong. Ex Singapore there is Finnair, British Airways, Emirates (see article), Qantas (see article), Singapore Airlines (see article), Thai and Turkish Airlines (see article).
I note with interest the flight to Male in Maldives (MLE). People are unlikely to go to Koh Samui and then to Maldives, both island destinations. This is why the flight is from Bangkok, not Koh Samui. The Maldives route probably serves two market segments:
Thai middle class people and western expats looking for an island break outside of Thailand
Thai people who work at Maldivian hotels (the people who make the good times roll) or who are travelling to visit family members living and working in Maldives.
Seemingly every route is designed to facilitate tourism in Thailand. That is a high concentration of party flights, making sure many travellers have a good time.
But Bangkok Airways is just as much about Koh Samui as it is is about Bangkok
The table below shows some stats about Bangkok Airways’s network. It also shows some revenue analysis that I simulated based on my method of using filed fares to constructed a weighted-average ticket value (see article, model available on request).
53.5% of Bangkok Airways’s flights and 48.6% of their economy class capacity is to and from Bangkok (exclusing the Bangkok <> Koh Samui air bridge). But only 38.8% of their revenue comes from the Thai capital. 40.9% of revenue and 75.4% of business class revenue is derived from Koh Samui services. Funnily enough, it turns out that Bangkok Airways owns and built Koh Samui Airport.
61.2% of revenue is from Koh Samui and other Thai domestic services, all important holiday destinations. Together they make an unusually high concentration of party flights. I wonder if any other airline’s network is more focused on moving holiday-makers from place-to-place anywhere in the world.
oliver AT ransonpricing DOT com
