Thai Lion Air brushes aside country's red flag, adds jets to fleet

Thai Lion Air is on course to acquire its first three wide-body jets, regardless of whether Thailand's red flag imposed by a UN aviation safety<br/>auditing agency is lifted. Aswin Yangkirativorn, CE of the budget airline subsidiary of Indonesia's Lion Group, Monday confirmed the arrival of the first Airbus A330-300 jet this November, to be joined shortly after by two more aircraft. The three wide-body jets will be instrumental to TLA's debut of medium- and long-haul routes and high-capacity aircraft, adding to its current short-haul services rendered by narrow-body Boeing 737 aircraft. TLA intends to use these wide-body jets to launch flights from its Don Mueang airport base to Japan, South Korea and northern China. But the launch of flights, especially to Japan and South Korea, is subject to the removal of the punitive restrictions on Thai-registered airlines'<br/>international flights by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO). "Even if ICAO keeps the red flag, we will continue to take delivery of A330-300s as planned, but we will deploy in other destinations such as China [where ICAO's red flag is not strictly enforced]," Aswin said. ICAO is expected to wrap up its work later this week and may issue its result soon after.<br/>