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Austrian Airlines said it has launched its first direct flights from
Vienna
to the
Thai resort island of Phuket on the back of recovering tourism demand
after the Dec 26 tsunami.
 The airline made its first flight to Phuket on Sunday, becoming the first
and only European carrier to fly directly to the resort island after the
tsunami, which killed nearly 5,400 people in Thailand, half of them believed
to be foreign tourists.
'Many European airlines withdrew from Phuket after the tsunami, but we
believed demand for tourism among Europeans was recovering,' said a
spokesperson for the airline in
Bangkok.
'We also wanted to support tourism in Phuket,' she said, adding the
company only operated charter flights to the island before the tsunami.
Some 240 European holidaymakers took the airline's first flight from
Vienna and already more than 90 pct of seats for flights from Dec to Feb
2006, the peak of Thailand's tourist season, have been booked, she said.
The company expects the once-a-week Vienna-Phuket flights to bring at
least 40,000 European tourists a year to Thailand.
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