Thai Airways appears to have pushed back the deployment of its Airbus A350-900 on one of its daily flights to Shanghai, with the aircraft now scheduled to take over the route this summer.
The carrier had previously scheduled the aircraft to take over the route on April 21, according to industry website routesonline.com, but has now delayed deployment of the A350 to Shanghai until June 1.
The aircraft is reportedly set to take over the airline’s daily TG664/TG665 flights – the earlier TG662/TG663 daily flights will continue to be operated by Thai’s A330-300.
| Flight No. | From | To | Departs | Arrives | Days | Aircraft |
| TG662 | Bangkok (BKK) | Shanghai (PVG) | 0030 | 0545 | Daily | A330-300 |
| TG664 | 1045 | 1600 | Daily | A350-900 | ||
| TG663 | Shanghai (PVG) | Bangkok (BKK) | 0730 | 1105 | Daily | A330-300 |
| TG665 | 1725 | 2100 | Daily | A350-900 |
The A350 also has been earmarked for a number of other destinations in China, notably Beijing and Guangzhou. Thai Airways began flying the A350 to the Chinese capital last month, while Guangzhou is set to see the aircraft sometime this year.
Thai’s two-class A350s feature 32 seats in business class and 289 in economy. Business class is laid out in a staggered 1-2-1 formation, resulting in the centre seats on odd-numbered rows being positioned closer to each other in a sort of seat “pair” compared to those on even-numbered rows. For the solo seats, however, those on odd rows are positioned closer to the aisle while those on even rows sit closer to the windows.
All seats in Thai’s A350 business class recline to a 73.5-inch-long fully flat bed, though pitch (legroom) is between 43 and 44 inches when seated in an upright position. Seats offer 21 inches of width and come with a 16-inch video screen.
The economy cabin, meanwhile, is laid out in a 3-3-3 configuration with seats offering between 16.8 and 18 inches of width, along with a pitch of between 31 and 32 inches, a 120-degree recline and an 11-inch screen.
This isn’t the first time Thai Airways has delayed the deployment of its A350 on a route. In October last year, the airline finally began flying the aircraft on its Melbourne route, a year after it had originally planned.
Thai Airways currently flies to nine destinations in China, including Beijing, Changsha, Chengdu, Chongqing, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Kunming, Shanghai and Xiamen.
