OPINION

Better checks needed

Re: "Lessons learned from airport chaos" (BP, Dec 3).

The article put the blame on the scheduled maintenance closure of the runway as the main cause for the Thai Vietjet flight VZ309 failing to take off from Phuket airport the night of Dec 1. It fails to hit the root cause of the incident.

What was seen on TV on Dec 2 was a picture taken in the cabin of the aircraft showing one passenger standing without a seat. Such an incident would not normally happen. The article said the flight was "overbooked"; in fact, it was not.

Firstly, in normal practice, when the passengers from the cancelled flight VZ2305 were transferred to the flight VZ309, the number of passengers would have been known on the ground.

No matter how many passengers were on the cancelled flight, the number would be limited and so was the number of the boarding passes to be re-issued. I would thus call it "over-checking-in" rather than "overbooking".

Even if the mentioned first screening fails, there is the second screening at the entrance to the aircraft cabin, where a cabin crew member would normally count the number of passengers entering.

The over-capacity should have been known by then. The third screening takes place before the aircraft door is closed, when the one passenger without a seat should have been noticed. The problem would have been corrected before the scheduled closure time of the runway.

What actually happened in this case was that the passenger standing was noticed when the aircraft was already at the runway preparing to take off. It had to return to the terminal to offload the passengers. So, the root cause of the problem was the failure of the three screenings.

Re: "Tourism making gradual recovery," (Business, Dec 2).

Your article leads by saying "the recovery rate of Thai tourism was slower than neighbouring countries because of a shortage of flights".

Well, let me add that tourism is down because of a shortage of flights that tourists want to take. In 2021 and earlier in 2022, Thai Airways flew non-stop London to Phuket. My son used this excellent service twice.

Now at the height of the tourist season, Thai have stopped this direct route and require a change of planes in Bangkok with all the delays and possible lost luggage that this involves. Other airlines, from other cities, fly direct, non-stop to Phuket. Why not Thai Airways? Phuket is Thailand's most popular destination and deserves direct flights.

Re: "Which way for Malaysia under Anwar Ibrahim?" (Opinion, Dec 2).

Kudos to the 10th prime minister. The cabinet he has put together is indeed a lean machine which means all MPs outside cabinet have to work doubly hard. Naysayers and those who subscribe to the Tak Nak mindset (those who always are soaked in negativism) should move aside as Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim's speed train is about to roll on.

Anwar has broken the enslaving shackles of a race-based, quota-filled cabinet that was common practice before. Anwar's persevering streak and his determined will brought him this far. We need to believe in this man for what he can do for the nation.

As Theodore Roosevelt said, "Do what you can, with what you have, where you are" and we will cross the rapids.

Our beloved national father's birthday is this weekend. We should honour HM R9's memory by doing something which he very much wished for, and which we can easily do.

As Grossman and Faulder wrote in their palace-approved book: "Thailand's law of lèse-majesté has one very prominent critic: King Bhumibol.… In 2005... King Bhumibol used his annual televised birthday address to convey three concerns: (a) 'The king,' he said, 'is a human being and as such should be subject to criticism. (b) Charges against those accused of lèse-majesté should be dropped, and those held in jail for lèse-majesté should be released, and (c) The use of the lèse-majesté law ultimately damages the monarchy.'"

For just this one day each year, let's implement the LM laws by dropping charges and releasing convicts. Stop damaging our highest institution.