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BANGKOK, 25 August 2014: Nok Air and Singapore’s Scoot have successfully acquired Pete Air Company Ltd that will allow the two airlines to speed up registration and air operating permits for their planned joint venture
It is understood Pete Air Company was acquired as it already had an airline operating permit from the Thailand Department of Civil Aviation and this would speed up the process to get the new airline airborne in early 2015.
Late last week, they announced the official name change of the company to NokScoot Airlines Company Ltd to be known commercially as “NokScoot”, along with the appointment of Piya Yodmani as the company’s Chief Executive Officer.
According to the press release sent to media last Thursday, NokScoot is scheduled to start operations in the first quarter of 2015.
Nok Airlines Public Company Ltd, Scoot Pte Ltd and Pueannammitr Company Ltd, purchased the shares of Pete Air Company Ltd, 19 June.
The name change to NokScoot Airlines Company was filed 19 August and became effective a day later.
Scoot Pte Ltd and Nok Airlines Public Company Ltd both will each hold 49% of the stock in NokScoot.
The tie-up could turn out to be a very significant business transaction for Thailand’s low-cost airline sector as it creates a business unit led by Thailand’s Nok Air and a subsidiary of Singapore Airlines, arguably one of the world’s top airlines. SQ has an extensive and profitable network that NokScoot can now exploit to feed traffic to domestic destinations in Thailand via SQ’s Changi hub.
It will seriously challenge Thai Airways International which has traditionally held the lion’s share of international traffic connecting to Thailand’s domestic destination.
Through Nok Air, the SQ group has access to all Thailand’s domestic destinations. Ironically, the move with put additional pressure on THAI, but ultimately it stands to gain as it is a major shareholder in Nok Air.
Heading NokScoot, Mr Piya has held management positions at THAI and Nok Air.
He said: “The current competition in the low-cost airline market is intense, with passengers having a wide variety of choices for destinations and airlines. This is the current challenge for low-cost airlines which we keep in mind.”
Nok Air chief executive officer, Patee Sarasin, has also been appointed as chairman of the executive committee of the NokScoot board.
Mr Patee said: “Our hope is that NokScoot will be trusted and loved by passengers in the manner that Nok Air achieved in the past 10 years, which is now the number one premium low-cost airline of Thailand.
“The joint venture between Scoot and Nok Air, will enhance our route network, to be more competitive in the market and offer passengers with more choices in the future.”
NokScoot will operate flights with a fleet of Boeing 777-200 aircraft from Bangkok’s Don Mueang International Airport to medium to long haul destinations.
Nok Air and Scoot of Singapore Airlines’ low-cost unit signed a Memorandum of Understanding, 16 December 2013, to establish a new low-cost airline that will be based in at Don Mueang International Airport in Bangkok.
Scoot™ operates medium and long haul no-frills flights between Singapore and Sydney, Gold Coast, Bangkok, Taipei, Tokyo, Tianjin, Shenyang, Nanjing, Qingdao, Seoul, Hong Kong and Perth.
Scoot will shift all of its Bangkok flights from Suvarnabhumi Airport (BKK) to Don Mueang International Airport (DMK) starting 1 September, when it begins commercial cooperation with Thailand’s Nok Air.
The Nok Air tie-up will allow Scoot to offer its passengers connections to 21 domestic destinations in Thailand as the first part of the joint venture.
