Thailand’s flag-carrier Thai Airways is still trying to sell 10 Boeing 747 passenger aircraft. The planes on sale include all 9 Jumbo jets that the airline had operated up until the crisis and one aircraft retired back in 2018.
Aircraft listed on the sale notice include 10 Boeing 747-400 (registered as HS-TGA, HS-TGB, HS-TGF, HS-TGG, HS-TGO, HS-TGP, HS-TGW, HS-TGX, HS-TGY, HS-TGZ) aircraft manufactured between 1993 and 2003.
Prior to pandemic, Thai Airways planned to retire its Boeing 747s fleet by the end of 2024. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the timeline of that has been pushed forward by four years.
Thai Airways operated nine Boeing 747-400s before the COVID-19 broke out, according to Planespotters.net data. However, in March 2020, the flag-carrier placed all its Boeing 747s into storage, except for the HS-TGF, which was stored in Bangkok Suvarnabhumi Airport on December 31, 2020, the Flightradar24.com data shows.
In addition to 10 Boeing 747s, the airline currently has listed 18 Boeing 777 family aircraft, two Boeing 737-400s, nine Airbus A340s, two Airbus A380-800s, and one Airbus A300-600 aircraft in order to find potential buyers, according to Thai Aircraft Trading.
The sale was first announced on November 5, 2020, when the air carrier published an official advertisement on the Thai Aircraft Trading website. The advertisement showed that Thai Airways jumbos could be delivered for customers starting from Q2 2021.
In February 2021, rumors spread that the aircraft sale was part of a plan to modernize the fleet and replace sold or decommissioned airplanes into new ones by the end of 2025. However, Thai Airways denied rumors regarding the aircraft purchase.
Additionally, the Thai flag-carrier stated that announcement of used passenger aircraft sales was only a market survey to find potential buyers. The airline would only sell its aircraft if the Central Bankruptcy Court approved its bankruptcy restructuring plan.
“The actual sale of the Aircraft, therefore, will only take place subject to THAI obtaining all of its internal approvals and THAI’s court-approved rehabilitation plan,” Thai Airways wrote in a statement seen by AeroTime News on February 25, 2021.
The airline is currently under financial rehabilitation process approved by the Central Bankruptcy Court on September 14, 2020. The Court granted Thai Airways business reorganization petition and appointed the planners who were expected to submit the plan to the Court until March 2, 2021.