Phuket

Phuket Air to dump London for Amsterdam

Published

16 years ago

Wednesday, April 6, 2005

BANGKOK: Phuket Air is to axe direct flights between Bangkok and London, citing the impending low season, and will be replacing the route with a new service between Bangkok and Amsterdam.

The airline’s marketing and communications manager, Krona Visutrasai, told the Gazette the London flights had been “suspended temporarily”, and that the company intends to reintroduce the route, but with a “better service”, later.

K. Krona said it was not unusual for airlines to review and alter services according to fluctuations in demand, and that Phuket Air’s services to Phuket, Ranong and Krabi were continuing as usual.

She added that Thai Airways International (THAI) was reducing its Bangkok-London flights, and that the cancellation of the Phuket Air service should make it easier for THAI to fill its planes during the low season. “This would be more beneficial to the Thai airline business as a whole,” she commented.

K. Krona conceded that Phuket Air has suffered because of the tsunami, but she said it was too early to say how the company would react to the diesel price hike.

She added that, in addition to the Bangkok-Amsterdam service, Phuket Air is introducing a direct service between Bangkok and Denpasar, Bali.

Phuket Air is currently facing serious image difficulties following an incident during a refueling stop at Sharjah, in the UAE, on Sunday. Passengers aboard a Phuket Air Boeing 747 en route to London forced the takeoff to be aborted after allegedly seeing fuel pouring from a wing tank.

The airline has denied that there was anything wrong with the first aircraft, blaming passengers for “panicking”.

Many UK newspapers and media sources quoted Gordon MacFarland, Phuket Air’s UK sales manager, as saying that the fuel flowing from the wing had been caused by overfilling of the fuel tanks during the stop, and was not dangerous.

“Are passengers really qualified to know what’s going on? These passengers had come from a tsunami-hit area and were probably nervous,” he was quoted as saying. Many of the passengers had been in Phuket.

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News Categories: Phuket

Phuket

ICU beds for Covid-19 patients in Phuket are close to a “critical” low

Published

8 hours ago

Monday, May 10, 2021

Tanutam Thawan

FILE PHOTO

Covid-19 patients in severe condition may have to been transferred from a government hospital in Phuket to a private hospital as the number of available hospital beds at public intensive care units in Phuket is close to a “critical” low, according to Vachira Phuket Hospital Director Chalermpong Sukontapol.

There are 9 ICU rooms at the Vachira Phuket Hospital. 5 are being used for Covid-19 patients with severe symptoms while the other 4 rooms are for those with mild symptoms and are under observation before being moved to another bed.

“If the 9 rooms are full of severe symptom cases, that will be a big critical stage. We may need to transfer our patients to other provinces or private hospitals, which may involve additional costs.”

He says 50% of the Covid-19 patients in Phuket are asymptomatic while 30% have mild symptoms and 10% have severe symptoms. For most of those with severe symptoms, the virus has moved to their lungs and they are in need of special equipment, like ventilators, to help them breathe and Charlempong says those patients need to be under close observation.

SOURCE: Phuket News

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Coronavirus (Covid-19)

For travellers to Phuket, testing is out, quarantine is in

Published

2 days ago

Saturday, May 8, 2021

Neill Fronde

PHOTO: Phuket Vice Governor Piyapong Choowong (via Facebook)

The on-again-off-again plans for testing people for Covid-19 as they arrive in Phuket will be replaced by quarantine after May 15, according to Vice Governor Piyapong Choowong’s latest announcement. In an online video broadcast last night, the vice governor confirmed the new scheme after Phuket Governor Narong Woonciew first mentioned it in an executive meeting at Phuket Provincial Hall yesterday.

There are now 25 provinces on the Phuket red zone list that they instated on April 22, with anyone arriving from those places required to have proof that they are either fully vaccinated or tested negative for Covid-19 within the last 72 hours. Without proof, people have to take a rapid antigen test to confirm they did not have Covid-19 before they would be allowed on the island. The test was first set to be 300 baht for everyone, and later controversially made free for Thai people and 500 baht for foreigners.

There had been some back and forth with budget concerns of being able to provide the mass testing and who would pay how much for continued testing. Perhaps requiring people to quarantine in Phuket is cheaper than testing them when they arrive (cheaper for Phuket officials anyway).

The original scheme was set to expire May 15, and announcements were made about extending the plan and stopping testing right away. For now, this debate seems to have settled on replacing the testing with a mandatory quarantine upon entering Phuket.

The vice-governor explained that the rapid antigen test will continue through May 14, and then starting May 15, anyone who arrives without a vaccine or a negative Covid-19 test within 72 hours of arriving in Phuket will be required to quarantine for 14 days. They set a goal of zero new infections by the end of the next two weeks. And he stated they are committed to doing whatever it takes as “Phuket cannot continue with this risk”.

Speaking to The Phuket News… “We want to send a sign to the country that we are cleaning up our province. The 3 vice governors [in Phuket] have been ordered to take care of each district by cooperating with local administration officers as well as community leaders to do proactive screening,”

After announcing the quarantine plan for Phuket, the vice governor spoke confidently that in the near future the island will have enough jabs to vaccinate every person on the island. Religious leaders from any faith are currently being vaccinated because of their general proximity to people during religious ceremonies and practices.

Vice Governor Piyapong pled with people with the people of Phuket who were on the fence about Covid-19 vaccinations, anti-vaxxers, or those otherwise resisting getting the jabs needed to reach herd immunity.

“If you are still deciding whether or not to get vaccinated, please come to get vaccinated”

SOURCE: The Phuket News

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Phuket

Thailand News Today | Pfizer vaccines on the way, Phuket’s July re-opening | May 7

Published

3 days ago

Friday, May 7, 2021

Thaiger

Disease Control Department back-peddled saying that that foreigners living in Thailand WILL also be vaccinated, governor of Chiang Mai is calling for the ban on dining in at restaurants in the northern city to be lifted and for eateries to be allowed to serve food on-site until 9pm, Tourism and Sports Minister insists the southern island of Phuket must record zero Covid-19 cases if a planned July re-opening is to go ahead, and 150 million baht worth of methamphetamine pills were impounded in Nakhon Phanom yesterday