Thailand airlines ban
 

It appears the lax regulation of Thai airline operators is coming home to roost.

Japan,Singapore,China and South Korea are imposing restrictions with more expected to follow.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/tran...-thai-carriers
The “dominoes” that Transport Minister Prajin Juntong worried would begin falling over a global safety warning about Thailand’s aviation industry have indeed begun to tumble, with China and South Korea...

Just a few days ago Orient Thai suffered this misshap in China....

http://www.china.org.cn/china/2015-0...t_35184951.htm
The plane was scheduled to take off on 2:40 pm from Kunming to Chengdu on Saturday but was delayed. According to a staff member from the airport, the flight was supposed to fly from Phuket Island directly to Chengdu and the reason why it land in Kunming is still not clear.

According to the newspaper, a passenger on the plane said the forced landing is because one of the engines was broken. Many passengers on the plane suffered symptoms such as ear congestion, nose bleeding or fainting.

This from the airline that brought you the disaster in Phuket. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-T...nes_Flight_269

Dear Leader will fix it...
 

Nothing to worry about, General Prayut has promised to use the "immense power given to him by invoking Article 44 of the interim charter" to fix this little problem in 2-8 months:
Article 44 to be used to fix aviation woes - The Nation

Amazing Thailand...

T I T - This is Thailand!

The article in The Nation that kristofera posted has some voting buttons underneath it. The most votes have gone to the Amused category - 40%. Coming in second is Angry with 28%. :E

Thailand as a whole has too much too lose if this ban stays in place. The effect on tourism, Thais best money income would be disastrous.

Though it may not be, and I hope not, I suspect it is just a temporary blip.

Thoughts?

Prayuth has definitely noticed it and mentioned it as an action item for his post-martial law, Article 44 phase of government, so it'll get some attention. The press conference where they line up a few Rohingya fishermen and blame them for the faults of the DCA should be a hoot.

I'm mostly curious why now and why Thailand specifically, when Malaysia seems like an obvious target for scrutiny given recent events. There are a number of international political footballs in the air, from the AEC free labor reforms to Thailand floating the canal again to the US anti-trafficking push here to the pressure to return to democracy and so on. I don't doubt the validity of the findings at all, and I hope this causes the cleanup that's needed (not holding my breath). Central reforms like this, that don't involve huge contracts (i.e. military, infrastructure, etc) and aren't provincially homed, are much more feasible here, so maybe something will get done. We'll see.

Over a year ago the Thai DCA were given 12 months to sort out ‘issues’. The most significant was the ease at which AOCs were given out, often to operators who had just gone bankrupt and resurrected another airline after a quick respray.

EASA and the FAA have also made similar findings and I doubt that Prayut will be able to have much influence over what is likely to happen over the coming weeks and months.

Unfortunately the better operators are going to be caught up in the mess.

AOC PROCESS
 

Im not privy to ICAO requirements for the issue of an AOC, but I can definately say without a shadow of doubt that the process is very long, involved costly and quite demanding, having been on the receiving end myself in the recent past.They are quite hard too when it comes to operating rules (in my personal experience), and dont let you get away with much when you try to "interpret" their various rules.
The bottom line is safety.Should Canada now be downgraded due to the Air Canada A320 crash? Shouldnt Germany be downgraded now due to the horrific A320 smash? How about UK too since we now know about a BA 744 Captain wanting to crash his plane after a murder? Food for thought.