Thai Airways headed for bankruptcy protection

Thailand’s government is poised to push beleaguered THAI into bankruptcy protection in a move that would mark one of the world’s first failures of a national flag carrier since the outbreak of Covid-19.  The cabinet of PM Prayuth Chan-ocha will Tuesday be asked to consider a proposal from the transport ministry for a rehabilitation plan that would result in the restructuring of the lossmaking state-owned carrier after a bankruptcy filing in court, two senior government officials said.  “Today there was a meeting of the State Enterprise Policy Committee, which approved the transport ministry’s proposal to submit the rehabilitation plan to cabinet tomorrow,” said Thaworn Senniam, deputy minister of transport.  The move comes after years of widening losses at the airline, and a rift inside the government, where some ministers had favoured rescuing the airline with a bailout loan worth Bt54b (US$1.7b).  “People don’t want to inject more money without getting a foolproof return in terms of reorganisation,” said a second government official.  The two government officials said they expected the cabinet to approve the proposal, but added that the decision on whether to proceed would be confirmed only on Tuesday.  Thai Airways was already in deep trouble before the pandemic because of its failure to keep up with competitors’ fleet and service offerings, its decision to operate flights on unprofitable routes and the appreciating baht. <br/>