Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport
Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport is a major airport in the U. S. state of Alaska, located 5 miles southwest of downtown Anchorage. The airport is named for Ted Stevens, a U. S. senator from Alaska in office from 1968 to 2009. It is included in the Federal Aviation Administration National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2017–2021, in which it is categorized as a medium-hub primary commercial service facility. Built in 1951, the airport was served in the 1950s by Alaska Airlines, Northwest Orient, Pacific Northern Airlines and Reeve Aleutian Airways, using aircraft ranging from Douglas DC-3s to Boeing 377s, was a refueling stop for Canadian Pacific Air Lines service to the Far East. From 1955 to 2011, the eastern end of the airport's southernmost runway connected to the Kulis Air National Guard Base. Anchorage was a common stopover for passengers flying to East Asia until the late 1980s because Chinese and Soviet airspace were off-limits and because the first generation of jets and widebody airliners did not have the range to fly non-stop across the Pacific Ocean.
Carriers using Anchorage for this purpose included: Northwest Orient, the first airline to operate scheduled transpacific service after World War II, used Elmendorf Field and Anchorage International as a stopover for service between US points and Tokyo as late as the mid-1970s. Scandinavian Airlines began a transpolar flight from Copenhagen to Tokyo via Anchorage in 1957. Japan Airlines served Seattle through Anchorage in the early 1960s, offered service through Anchorage to London, Amsterdam, Düsseldorf and other European cities from the 1960s until as late as 1987. Air France, British Airways, Iberia, KLM, Lufthansa and Sabena all used Anchorage as a stopover point between Europe and Tokyo into the 1980s. Korean Air used Anchorage as a stopover point for flights between Seoul and both Europe and the continental US in the 1980s. On September 1, 1983, one of these flights, Flight 007 was shot down by a Soviet pilot who had mistaken it for a spy plane, after unintentionally violating Soviet airspace.
Most scheduled passenger service from Anchorage to Europe and Asia ceased in the early 1990s following the end of the Cold War. Korean Air continued to serve Anchorage on a scheduled basis until the early 2000s. China Airlines, the last Asian carrier to serve Anchorage on a regular basis, used Anchorage as an intermediate stop on its Taipei-New York route until 2011, when it rerouted these flights to stop in Osaka. While a few charter passenger aircraft still stop at Anchorage on flights between Asia and the eastern United States, scheduled cargo carriers – which benefit from more volume and thus shorter route segments – continue to use Anchorage frequently. In the 1990s, Alaska Airlines and Aeroflot operated service from Anchorage to several destinations in the Russian Far East, including Khabarovsk, Petropavlovsk and Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. Alaska Airlines pulled out of these markets in 1998 due to insufficient demand, while the Aeroflot services were intended as technical stops en route to Seattle and San Francisco and were cancelled once newer aircraft and nonstop rights became available.
Reeve Aleutian Airways, Dalavia and MAVIAL Magadan Airlines offered service between Anchorage and the Russian Far East at various times, catering to Kamchatka oil exploration and other niche markets. In October 2018, Alaska Governor Bill Walker and Heilongjiang Province Governor Wang Wentao announced plans to connect Anchorage and Harbin Taiping International Airport with year-round, nonstop flights as early as summer 2019; the airport was renamed in 2000 by the Alaska Legislature to honor long-standing U. S. Senator Ted Stevens. Stevens survived a fatal crash at the airport in 1978. On November 30, 2018, the airport suffered minor damage and was temporarily closed following a magnitude 7.0 earthquake in the area. Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport's passenger traffic hovered around the five million mark between 1998 and 2008, apart from in 2002 when the airport suffered a 13% drop in traffic. Fairbanks and Juneau are the next busiest airports though neither managed more than half a million passengers last year.
Anchorage traffic peaks in June and August when passenger numbers are twice as high as between October and April. Most major U. S. passenger carriers serve ANC, with the majority of passenger flight operations by Alaska Airlines to and from Seattle and Fairbanks. Anchorage is envisioned as a future connecting point for air traffic to the Russian Far East. During the summer season 2008, there was one weekly flight to Russia by Vladivostok Air. Yakutia Airlines resumed summer seasonal service to Russia in 2012. Many of Alaska's North Slope workers live either in Anchorage or elsewhere in the Lower 48 states and fly through the airport to their jobs in Prudhoe Bay; as per Federal Aviation Administration records, the airport had 2,599,313 passenger boardings in calendar year 2008, 2,282,666 enplanements in 2009, 2,342,310 in 2010. Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport is a major cargo hub; as of 2015, it ranked as the fourth busiest airport in the world by cargo traffic, after Hong Kong and Shanghai–Pudong.
FedEx Express and UPS Airlines operate major hubs at Anchorage International for cargo heading to and from the Far East. NWA Cargo used to operate a major hub at the airport until December 28, 2009 when it closed all operations for Northwest Cargo at all airports. FedEx Express is the airport's largest cargo facility and can handle as many as 13,400 packages per hour, employing more than
Airline codes
This is a list of airline codes. The table lists IATA's two-character airline designators, ICAO's three-character airline designators and the airline call signs. Historical assignments are included. IATA airline designators, sometimes called IATA reservation codes, are two-character codes assigned by the International Air Transport Association to the world's airlines; the standard is described in IATA's Standard Schedules Information Manual and the codes themselves are described in IATA's Airline Coding Directory. The IATA codes based on the ICAO designators which were issued in 1947 as two-letter airline identification codes. IATA expanded the two-letter-system with codes consisting of a letter and a digit after ICAO had introduced its current 3-letter-system in 1982; until only combinations of letters were used. Airline designator codes follow the format xx, i.e. two alphanumeric characters followed by an optional letter. Although the IATA standard provides for three-character airline designators, IATA has not used the optional third character in any assigned code.
This is because some legacy computer systems the "central reservations systems", have failed to comply with the standard, notwithstanding the fact that it has been in place for 20 years. The codes issued to date comply with IATA Resolution 762; these codes thus comply with the current airline designator standard, but use only a limited subset of its possible range. There are three types of designator: numeric/alpha and controlled duplicate. IATA airline designators are used to identify an airline for commercial purposes in reservations, tickets, air waybills and in telecommunications. A flight designator is the concatenation of the airline designator, xx, the numeric flight number, n, plus an optional one-letter "operational suffix". Therefore, the full format of a flight designator is xxn. After an airline is delisted, IATA can make the code available for reuse after six months and can issue "controlled duplicates". Controlled duplicates are issued to regional airlines whose destinations are not to overlap, so that the same code is shared by two airlines.
The controlled duplicate is denoted here, in IATA literature, with an asterisk. An example of this is the code "7Y", which refers to both Mid Airlines, a charter airline in Sudan, Med Airways, a charter airline in Lebanon. IATA issues an accounting or prefix code; this number is used on tickets as the first three characters of the ticket number. The ICAO airline designator is a code assigned by the International Civil Aviation Organization to aircraft operating agencies, aeronautical authorities, services related to international aviation, each of whom is allocated both a three-letter designator and a telephony designator; these codes are unique by airline, unlike the IATA airline designator codes. The designators are listed in ICAO Document 8585: Designators for Aircraft Operating Agencies, Aeronautical Authorities and Services. ICAO codes have been issued since 1947; the ICAO codes were based on a two-letter-system and were identical to the airline codes used by IATA. After an airline joined IATA its existing ICAO-two-letter-code was taken over as IATA code.
Because both organizations used the same code system, the current terms ICAO code and IATA code did not exist until the 1980s. They were called two-letter-airline-designators. At this time it was impossible to find out whether an airline was an IATA member or not just by looking at its code. In the 1970s the abbreviation BA was the ICAO code and the IATA code of British Airways while non-IATA-members like Court Line used their 2-letter-abbreviation as ICAO code only. In 1982 ICAO introduced the current three-letter-system due to the increasing number of airlines. After a transitional period of five years it became the official new ICAO standard system in November 1987 while IATA kept the older 2-letter-system, introduced by ICAO in 1947. Certain combinations of letters, for example SOS, are not allocated to avoid confusion with other systems. Other designators those starting with Y and Z, are reserved for government organizations; the designator YYY is used for operators. An example is: Operator: American Airlines Three-letter designator: AAL Telephony designator: AMERICANA timeline of the airline designators used by American Airlines: Most airlines employ a call sign, spoken during airband radio transmissions.
As by ICAO Annex 10 chapter 5.2.1.7.2.1 a call sign shall be one of the following types: Type A: the characters corresponding to the registration marking of the aircraft. Type B: the telephony designator of the aircraft operating agency, followed by the last four characters of the registration marking of the aircraft. Type C: the telephony designator of the aircraft operating agency, followed by the flight identification; the one most used within commercial aviation is type C. The flight identification is often the same as the flight number, though this is not always the case. In case of call sign confusion a different flight identification can be chosen, but the flight number will remain the same. Call sign confusion happens when two or more flights with similar flight numbers fly close to each other, e.g. KLM 645 and KLM 649 or Speedbird 446 and Speedbird 664; the flight number is published in an airline's public timetable and appears on the arrivals and departure scr
Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport
Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport is a public international airport located in Hebron, United States. It serves the Greater Cincinnati metropolitan area; the airport's code, CVG, comes from the nearest city at the time of its opening, Kentucky. CVG covers an area of 7,000 acres; the airport houses the headquarters for Amazon Air, Delta Private Jets, DHL Americas, Southern Air. Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport offers non-stop passenger service to 63 destinations on 180-190 peak daily departures; the airport is a focus city for Allegiant Air, Delta Air Lines, Frontier Airlines, as well as being the largest market for Vacation Express. The airport's international destinations include Cancún, Montego Bay, Punta Cana, San José del Cabo, Toronto. In addition, CVG is the fastest-growing cargo airport in North America; the airport is a global hub for both Amazon Air and DHL Aviation, handling numerous domestic and international cargo flights every day. Overall, CVG ranks 4th in North America for total cargo operations.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt approved preliminary funds for site development of the Greater Cincinnati Airport on February 11, 1942; this was part of the United States Army Air Corps program to establish training facilities during World War II. At the time, air traffic in the area centered on Lunken Airport just southeast of central Cincinnati. Lunken opened in 1926 in the Ohio River Valley. Federal officials wanted an airfield site that would not be prone to flooding, but Cincinnati officials hoped to build Lunken into the region's main airport. Officials from Boone and Campbell Counties in Kentucky took advantage of Cincinnati's short-sightedness and lobbied Congress to build an airfield there. Boone County officials offered a suitable site on the provision that Kenton County paid the acquisition cost. In October 1942, Congress provided $2 million to build four runways; the field opened August 12, 1944, with the first B-17 bombers beginning practice runs on August 15. As the tide of the war had turned, the Air Corps only used the field until it was declared surplus in 1945.
On October 27, 1946, a small wooden terminal building opened and the airport prepared for commercial service. Boone County Airlines was the first airline to provide scheduled service from the airport and had its headquarters at the airport; the first commercial flight, an American Airlines DC-3 from Cleveland, landed on January 10, 1947, at 9:53 am. A Delta Air Lines flight followed moments later; the April 1957 Official Airline Guide shows 97 weekday departures: 37 American, 26 Delta, 24 TWA, 8 Piedmont and 2 Lake Central. As late as November 1959 the airport had four 5,500 ft runways at 45-degree angles, the north–south runway being extended into today's runway 18C/36C. In the 1950s Cincinnati city leaders began pushing for expansion of a site in Blue Ash to compete with the Greater Cincinnati Airport and replace Lunken as the city's primary airport; the city purchased Hugh Watson Field in 1955. The city's Blue Ash plans were hampered by community opposition, three failed Hamilton County bond measures, political infighting, Cincinnati's decision not to participate in the federal airfield program.
Airport diagram for December 1958 On December 16, 1960, the jet age arrived in Cincinnati when a Delta Air Lines Convair 880 from Miami completed the first scheduled jet flight. The airport needed to build more modern terminals and other facilities; the north–south runway was extended 3,100 to 8,600 ft. In 1964, the board approved a $12 million bond to expand the south concourse of Terminal A by 32,000 sq ft and provide nine gates for TWA, Delta. A new east–west runway crossing the longer north–south runway was constructed in 1971 south of the older east–west runway. In 1977, before the Airline Deregulation Act was passed, CVG, like many small airports, anticipated the loss of a lot of flights; the airline began service to Akron/Canton and Evansville. In 1981, Comair became a public company, added 30-seat turboprops to its fleet, began to expand its destinations. In 1984, Comair became a Delta Connection carrier with Delta's establishment of a hub at CVG; that same year, Comair introduced its first international flights from Cincinnati to Toronto.
In 1992, Comair moved into Concourse C, as Delta Air Lines continued to acquire more of the airlines stock. In 1993, Comair was the launch customer for the Canadair Regional Jet, of which it would operate the largest fleet in the world. By 1999, Comair was the largest regional airline in the country worth over $2 billion, transporting 6 million passengers yearly to 83 destinations on 101 aircraft; that year, Delta Air Lines acquired the remaining portion of Comair's stock, causing Comair to operate Delta Connection flights. In 1988, two founders of Comair, Patrick Sowers and Robert Tranter, launched a new scheduled airline from CVG named Enterprise Airlines, that served 16 cities at its peak; the airline spearheaded the regional jet revolution in a unique manner by operating 10-seat Cessna Citation business jets in scheduled services. The flights became popular with Cincinnati companies; the airline served destinations including Baltimore, Cedar Rapids, Green Bay, Greenville, Memphis, New York–JFK, Wilmington.
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Aviastar-TU
Aviastar-TU is a cargo charter airline which operates principally out of Ramenskoye Airport in Moscow, Russia. Its headquarters are in Moscow Oblast; the Aviastar-TU fleet consists of the following aircraft: RA-64024 is in DHL colors, RA-64051 and RA-64052 are in Russian Post livery. Aviastar-TU, as an aircraft operator, has a historical affiliation with Aviastar-SP, an aircraft builder. On 22 March 2010, Aviastar-TU Flight 1906, a Tupolev Tu-204 crashed on approach to Moscow Domodedovo International Airport. Only eight crew members were on board, all of them survived. Upon the accident, the Russian aviation supervisory authority suspended Aviastar-TU from carrying passengers, pending an examination of the airline's flight operations. In September 2010, the Russian aviation supervisory authority, МАК, released its final report into the accident; the cause of the accident was attributed to pilot error, with a number of factors contributing to the accident including inadequate crew training and lack of cockpit resource management, failure of autoflight systems and regulatory violations by Aviastar-TU.
Official website Official website
Exin
Exin is a cargo airline based in Lublin, Poland. Its main base is Katowice International Airport. Exin operates the following services on behalf of DHL Aviation: DenmarkCopenhagen - Copenhagen AirportEstoniaTallinn - Lennart Meri Tallinn AirportFinlandHelsinki - Helsinki-Vantaa AirportFranceBordeaux - Bordeaux – Mérignac Airport Marseille - Marseille Provence Airport Nice - Nice Côte d'Azur AirportGermanyLeipzig/Halle - Leipzig/Halle AirportNorwayStavanger - Stavanger Airport, SolaPolandGdańsk - Gdańsk Lech Wałęsa Airport Katowice - Katowice International AirportSpainVitoria - Vitoria Airport The Exin fleet includes the following aircraft: 4 Antonov An-26 On 18 March 2010, Flight 3589, operated by Antonov An-26 SP-FDO received an unsafe gear warning on approach to Lennart Meri Tallinn Airport, Estonia on a flight from Helsinki Airport, Finland. A go-around was initiated, during which an engine failed and a wheels-up landing was made on the frozen surface of Lake Ülemiste. Two of the six crew were injured.
On 25 August 2010, Flight 3788, operated by Antonov An-26 SP-FDP rejected takeoff from Tallinn's runway 08 at high speed when the gear collapsed or retracted during the takeoff roll. The airplane skidded to a stop on its belly, no injuries occurred. Official website
Boeing 737 Classic
The Boeing 737 Classic refers to the -300/-400/-500 series of the Boeing 737. It is the second-generation derivative of the 737, following the original -100/-200 models that began production in 1966, they are short - to narrow-body jet airliners. Produced by Boeing Commercial Airplanes from 1984 to 2000, the 737 Classic includes three variants and can seat between 145 and 188 passengers. Improvements over the previous generation of 737 aircraft included CFM International CFM56 high-bypass-ratio turbofan engines, upgraded avionics, increased passenger capacity; the first model of the Classic series, the 737–300, entered service in 1984. It was followed by a stretched model, the 737-400, which entered service in 1988, followed by the shortened 737-500, the smallest variant in the classic series, in 1990. In total, 1,988 aircraft were delivered; the Classic series was introduced as the new generation of the 737, but following the introduction of the 737 Next Generation in the mid-1990s, was designated as the 737 Classic series.
Following the success of the Boeing 737-200 Advanced, Boeing wanted to increase capacity and range, incorporating improvements to upgrade the plane to modern specifications, while retaining commonality with previous 737 variants. Development began in 1979, in 1980, preliminary aircraft specifications were released at the Farnborough Airshow; the new series featured CFM56 turbofan engines, yielding significant gains in fuel economy and a reduction in noise, but posing an engineering challenge given the low ground clearance of the 737 - a trait of its 707-derived fuselage. Boeing and engine supplier CFM International solved the problem by placing the engine ahead of the wing, by moving engine accessories to the sides of the engine pod, giving the 737 a distinctive noncircular air intake; the wing incorporated a number of changes for improved aerodynamics. The wing tip was extended 9 inches; the leading-edge slats and trailing-edge flaps were adjusted. The flight deck was improved with the optional electronic flight instrumentation system, the passenger cabin incorporated improvements similar to those on the Boeing 757.
In March 1981, USAir and Southwest Airlines each ordered 10 aircraft of the 737-300 series, with an option for 20 more. That aircraft, the initial model of the 737 Classic series, first flew in February 1984 and entered service in December of that year with Southwest Airlines. A further stretched model, the 737-400, was launched with an order for 25 aircraft with 30 options from Piedmont Airlines in June 1986; that aircraft first flew in February 1988 and entered service that year with Piedmont Airlines. The final model of the series, the 737-500, was launched with an order for 30 aircraft from Southwest Airlines in May 1987; that aircraft, designed as a replacement for the 737-200 and had similar passenger capacity and dimensions, as well as the longest range of any member of the 737 Classic family, first flew in June 1989 and entered service with Southwest Airlines in 1990. Boeing selected the CFM56-3 to power the 737-300 variant; the 737 wings were closer to the ground than previous applications for the CFM56, necessitating several modifications to the engine.
The fan diameter was reduced, which reduced the bypass ratio, the engine accessory gearbox was moved from the bottom of the engine to the 9 o'clock position, giving the engine nacelle its distinctive flat-bottomed shape, nicknamed the "hamster pouch". The overall thrust was reduced, from 24,000 to 20,000 lbf due to the reduction in bypass ratio. Throughout the 1980s, the 737 Classic series attracted large orders from airlines in the United States and Europe, with its order totals exceeding those of preceding 737 models. By far, the most successful model was the 737-300, with deliveries totaling 1,113 aircraft. Major operators included US carriers, small national airlines, charter carriers. By the 1990s, when regular Boeing customer United Airlines bought the Airbus A320, this prompted Boeing to update the slower, shorter-range 737 Classic -400 into the rewinged, more efficient, longer 737NG-800. Production of the 737 Classic continued alongside that of the Next Generation for a period of time.
Six former Southwest 737-300s are modified and operated for aerial firefighting by British Columbia-based Coulson Group, supported by a C$3.4 million loan from the Canadian government. The converted 737 FireLiner can carry 4,000 US gal with a flow rate of 3,000 US gal /s, retains 66 seats; the first was deployed to Australia. The prototype of the -300 rolled out of the Renton plant on January 17, 1984, first flew on February 24, 1984. After it received its flight certification on November 14, 1984, USAir received the first aircraft on November 28. A popular aircraft, Boeing received 252 orders for it in 1985, over 1,000 throughout its production; the 300 series remained in production until 1999 when the last aircraft was delivered to Air New Zealand on December 17, 1999, registration ZK-NGJ. By 1,113 Boeing 737-300s were produced in a span of more than 15 years. In December 2008, Southwest Airlines selected Boeing to retrofit the 737-300 with a new set of instruments and software, to improve commonality with the 737-700, as well as to support the Required Navigation Performance initiative, but that order was cancelled and the retrofits never took place.
The 737-300 can be retrofitted with Aviation Partners
Thai Airways
Thai Airways International Public Company Limited, trading as THAI is the flag carrier airline of Thailand. Formed in 1988, the airline has its corporate headquarters in Vibhavadi Rangsit Road, Chatuchak District and operates from Suvarnabhumi Airport. THAI is a founding member of the Star Alliance; the airline is the second-largest shareholder of the low-cost carrier Nok Air with a 21.80 per cent stake, it launched a regional carrier under the name Thai Smile in the middle of 2012 using new Airbus A320 aircraft. From its hub at Suvarnabhumi Airport and secondary hub at Phuket International Airport, Thai flies to 84 destinations in 37 countries, using a fleet of over 90 aircraft; the airline was once the operator of two of the world's longest non-stop routes between Bangkok and Los Angeles and New York City, but due to high fuel prices, the withdrawal of aircraft, luggage weight limits and rising airfares, the airline abandoned all non-stop US services in 2012 indefinitely. As of 2013, services between Bangkok and Los Angeles were served via Incheon International Airport near Seoul, however, it ended its service to the US on 25 October 2015.
Thai's route network is dominated by flights to Europe, East Asia, South/Southwest Asia, though the airline serves five cities in Oceania. Thai was the first Asia-Pacific airline to serve London Heathrow Airport. Among Asia-Pacific carriers, the company has one of the largest passenger operations in Europe; as of the end of 2018, it employed about 1,300 pilots across all of its routes.. Thai Airways has its origins in 1960 as a joint venture between Scandinavian Airlines, which held a 30 per cent share of the new company valued at two million Thai baht, Thailand's domestic carrier, Thai Airways Company; the purpose of the joint venture was to create an international wing for the domestic carrier Thai Airways Company. SAS provided operational and marketing expertise, with training assistance aimed at building a independent national airline within the shortest possible time. Thai nationals, through training and experience, were able to assume full managerial responsibility and the number of expatriate staff duly decreased, with expatriates accounting for less than one per cent of staff based in Thailand in 1987.
The carrier's first revenue flight was on 1 May 1960. Flights were operated to nine overseas Asian destinations from Bangkok; the airline's first intercontinental services using Douglas DC-8s started in 1971 to Australia, to Europe the following year. A number of the larger Douglas DC-10 wide-body tri-jet was acquired in the 1970s. Services to North America commenced in 1980. On 1 April 1977, after 17 years of capital participation by SAS, the Thai government bought out the remaining 15 per cent of SAS-owned shares and Thai became an airline owned by the Thai government. In 2016, the company is 51 per cent owned by the Thai Ministry of Finance. Forty-seven per cent of its shares trade on the Stock Exchange of Thailand. On 1 April 1988, then-Prime Minister Gen. Prem Tinsulanonda, in seeking to have a single national carrier, merged the international and domestic operations of the two companies to form the present company, Thai Airways International. On 25 June 1991, the new Thai listed its shares on the Stock Exchange of Thailand and offered them to the public.
The Thai public offering of shares is the largest undertaken in the country. In 1997 Thai Airways planned the first in Thai history. On 14 May 1997, THAI, along with Lufthansa, Air Canada, SAS, United Airlines, founded the world's first and largest airline alliance, Star Alliance. Throughout the 2000s, Thai aggressively continued its route network expansion with new services to Chengdu, Chennai, Milan, Islamabad, Hyderabad and Oslo. Using the Airbus A340-500s it acquired in 2005, Thai commenced non-stop flights from Bangkok to New York, its first non-stop services to North America; the airline converted existing one-stop services to Los Angeles into non-stop services using the same aircraft type. Citing high fuel costs, Thai discontinued the New York service in July 2008 though the airline had been able to fill 80 per cent of the seats; the service to Los Angeles was again reverted to one-stop service via Seoul on 1 May 2012, leaving the airline without a non-stop service between Thailand and North America.
The A340s used have been phased out using the Boeing 777-200ER for the Bangkok–Seoul–Los-Angeles route. Although the previous A340 used for non-stop services was not subject to ETOPS, the phasing in of the 777 with one-stop service will be indefinite for years to come. In 2006, THAI moved its hub operations to the new Bangkok Suvarnabhumi Airport. Coinciding with the arrival of new aircraft during the mid-2000s, as well as its new hub airport in Bangkok, the airline launched a brand renewal by introducing a new aircraft livery, new aircraft seating, revamped ground and air services; the 2000s saw Thai expanding its route network beyond its Bangkok hub. The airline launched non-stop flights from Phuket to Hong Kong. During the late-2000s, Thai's aggressive growth was hampered by a combination of internal and external factors, including a spike in fuel prices, domestic political conflict in Thailand, the global economic crisis of the late-2000s. In 2008, after achieving profitability for the previous 40 years, THAI recorded a
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