Thai Airways to Expand Catering Department By 20 Percent.

Byline: Somporn Thapanachai

Sep. 2--Thai Airways International will expand its catering department to handle daily production of 50,000 sets of in-flight meals, a 20 percent increase from 42,000 at present.

About 100 million baht is needed for expansion at Don Muang Airport over the short to medium term before a new catering facility is built at the 160-billion-baht Suvarnabhumi International Airport in the next four years.

Nikom Raviyan, director of Thai Airways' catering services department, said the expansion would start next month and finish within 180 days. Increasing the number of airline customers will depend on code-sharing arrangements between Thai Airways and its Star Alliance partners. Other target customers are airlines that will stop at Don Muang in the future.

He said airlines now stopping at Don Muang had a choice of three catering suppliers -- THAI, LSG Sky Chef of Lufthansa or Gate Gourmet of Swissair -- and Thai Airways would not target those airlines.

The catering department is now operating at full capacity, so expansion is necessary at Don Muang even though a new facility will be built at Suvarnabhumi.

Last year, Thai Airways produced 14.8 million in-flight meals for 40,880 flights of more than 40 airlines, taking a 64 percent market share at Don Muang. Gate Gourmet supplies 5.1 million meals (22 percent ) and LSG Sky Chef 3.3 ...