Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing stranded tourists being returned both through Thailand, via Thailand, as well as from Thailand in pretty staggering numbers. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Thailand Sends 40,000 Stranded Tourists” home. Quoting directly: "More than 40,000 tourists stranded here by flight disruptions in the Middle East have safely returned home, aided by the Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand's (that is CAAT) temporary approval for tour operators in the originating countries to send charter flights to receive them." Quoting further: "Suladda Sarulitavan, Executive Director of Europe at the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) said since the war erupted on February 28 the TAT offices in Europe have received multiple requests from Tour Companies seeking coordination to assist their tourists stranded in Thailand and other countries asking for support to escort their customers back home via Thai Airports. She said the Agency contacted CAAT to relay tour companies' difficulties in sending charter flights to Thailand due to regulations that prohibit charter flights from selling one-way tickets to tourists." Yeah, charter flights have their own sort of regulatory structure that under normal times they have to operate under and one of them is yeah, you can't do one-way flights for ostensible tourists for variety of different reasons I can think about the top of my head; I see why that regulation exists.

That said, quoting further: "Since March 3, CAAT responded to the request by granting temporary permission for chartered flights to operate empty aircraft to Thailand for evacuation. This order runs until March 14 to allow other companies to follow the same practice. Ms. Suladda said this coordination originated from a case involving ITAKA, one of the largest tour operators in Poland, which contacted the TAT's Prague office for assistance with a group of 18 tourists traveling to Australia. The group was scheduled to return to Warsaw via Doha on Feb 28 but was unable to do so due to airspace closures. The tour company purchased tickets for the tourists to travel to Bangkok, then board a charter flight back to Warsaw. Another case involved 315 tourists from Nordic countries that were stranded for more than a week across several destinations in Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean. The TAT coordinated with CAAT to allow Sunclass airlines of the Ving group to send a charter flight to pick up the customers on March 8, and the tourists arrived in Copenhagen on March 9."

The reason I am bringing this up, well one, it's of note especially in terms of travel news out here in Thailand. But also, I think it's worth pointing out, I just did a video where I sort of implied that look if you are getting stranded, you need to take a position at a certain point of looking at things for yourself, that you are kind of on your own. I think it's also worth pointing out though yeah, authorities here in Thailand have gone a long way to accommodate stranded tourists as well as folks utilizing Thailand as a transit point during this really difficult, for lack of a better term, difficult geopolitical moment, let's call it that, and I have really got to go out of my way and say maybe - I'm not exactly saying that if I was in a situation where I was stranded that I would not take the paradigm that I suggested in the prior video which is look, you need to be able to sort of fend for yourself in these circumstances. We saw a lot of folks during COVID have to kind of learn very quickly how to deal with a lot of things they had never dealt with before, especially in terms of travel. So I think rugged individualism is always a good philosophy, let me just put it that way. 

That said, I think it's really important to point out the fact the Thais have gone out of their way to accommodate not only tourists that came to Thailand and then found themselves stranded here, but also others around the world that now need to use a place as a transit point as we are seeing the, if you will, the paths of travel changing in light of the exigent circumstances arising in the Middle East. So I guess the thing to take away from this video is not only is Thailand a hub for international transit, it's also for basically international travel for those who are not necessarily in the most optimal set of circumstances.