Thai Airways International and Turkish Airlines signed a memorandum of understanding on Tuesday with the aim of forming a joint-venture partnership and working together on keenly contested Asia-Europe routes.
Airline partnerships typically involve coordinating schedules and sharing revenue. Qantas Airways and Emirates, for example, collaborate on Europe-Australia services. Tie-ups require approval from competition authorities in the airline operators’ countries.
An agreement would help the carriers expand their networks. THAI said it plans to launch daily flights between Bangkok and Istanbul, with a start date scheduled to be announced on Wednesday. Turkish Airlines already flies twice daily to the Thai capital.
THAI is still under court-monitored debt restructuring after filing for bankruptcy protection in 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic added further strain to an airline that had already suffered multiple losses over a decade.
The national carrier now operates about 65 aircraft compared with over 100 before the pandemic, but a strong post-pandemic recovery in travel demand has led it to draw up a new fleet expansion plan.
Chief executive officer Chai Eamsiri told told Bloomberg News in June that THAI plans to order as many as 30 more jets by the end of the year and to at least double its narrow-body fleet over the next decade
THAI and Turkish Airlines are members of the Star Alliance, which has 26 members including Singapore Airlines, United Airlines, Deutsche Lufthansa and ANA. Founded in 1997, the alliance is the biggest of the three major global airline groupings, which aim to help carriers better compete commercially as part of a larger bloc.