Carriers striving to clear backlog as Thai siege ends

Dubai: Flights to and from Thailand resume on Friday with the first flights scheduled to arrive and depart later tonight, after anti-government protesters left the country's international airport following the ouster of the Prime Minister.

Protesters accusing the administration of being proxies for former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinatwatra, who was removed from office in a military coup in 2006, took control of two main airports and left thousands stranded in a week-long siege. Emirates has announced that full operations will resume - daily services from December 5, double-daily services from December 6 and full to triple-daily services from December 9.

On Thursday, it was announced that its scheduled Dubai-Bangkok-Dubai service was reinstated and two additional relief flights would be operating to clear the backlog of stranded passengers.

Nabeel Sultan, senior vice president, Commercial Operations (Europe), told Gulf News: "We have so far sent 50 relief flights to Bangkok for the stranded passengers, and we have flown about 800 passengers back to Dubai.

"We are building our operations to Bangkok back up as the airport and all operations return to normal," he said.

Thai Airways will resume flights from the Middle East to Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport with flight TG 518 departing Dubai at 10.50pm today, December 5, followed by one flight tomorrow. Thereafter all flights from the Middle East to Bangkok will operate as per the published Winter 2008 to 2009 schedule.

A spokesperson for Thai Airways said: "Thai assumed responsibility for all confirmed passengers inconvenienced by the political demonstrations and succeeded in re-routing all passengers travelling on Thai to destinations beyond Bangkok. We have worked long hours to ensure that our passengers continued to experience the Thai hospitality, and were taken care of."

Pasan Teparak, Thai consul-general in Dubai, said: "The crisis is over. Thai Airways will resume their normal schedule."

The pro-Thaksin politicians have vowed to regroup under a different political party, after the ruling coalition was dissolved.