Thai Airways launches flights to Sendai

Thai Airways has launched a new direct service from Bangkok to Sendai, Japan.

The new service has been attributed to the substantial Japanese tourism market, which has shown continuous and regular growth. According to the Tourism Authority of Thailand, Japanese tourists represented the second largest number of arrivals to the country from the Asian region during the first quarter of 2013.

In addition, the weakening of the Yen has increased the demand of flights to Japan. Thai Airways reported that its overall cabin load factor on routes to Japan was 79.8 per cent, which represented a growth rate of 23.7 per cent. 

The carrier will service the route three times per week on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Flights will be operated with the Airbus A330-300 aircraft, which will feature a two-class configuration, with 26 seats in business class and 263 seats in economy.  

Being a popular leisure destination, Sendai is renowned for its beautiful nature sites, and historical museums. Thai Airways' decision to deploy an aircraft with fewer business class seats on this route makes sense since the main passenger demographic is likely to leisure family travellers. Thai Airways offers two other configurations for the A330-300, which features 36 and 42 business class seats respectively. 

Flight schedule are as follows:

With its new service to Sendai, Thai Airways now flies from Bangkok to six cities in Japan. Details are as follows:

Bangkok-Tokyo (Narita) at 21 flights per week

Bangkok-Tokyo (Haneda) at seven flights per week

Bangkok-Nagoya at 14 flights per week

Bangkok-Osaka at 17 flights per week

Bangkok-Fukuoka at seven flights per week

Bangkok-Sapporo at seven flights per week

Bangkok-Sendai at three flights per week

In celebration of the new route, the carrier is offering roundtrip economy class tickets to Sendai at prices starting from 19,800 baht (US$617), including taxes and surcharges.

For more information, visit www.thaiairways.com

Clement Huang