Bangkok's Floods Hit Airports Right as Golden Week Begins

0:10Tasmin Lockwood: Today, Bangkok's floods snarl its airports just ahead of China's golden week, Expedia's latest layoffs zero in on data science, and Carnival politely passes on the premium push. Welcome back to the SCIFT Daily Briefing. It's Tuesday, September 29th. I'm Tasmin Lockwood, Skip's Climate and Experiences reporter. Let's get into it. First up, Bangkok is flooded and it's hitting airports. Nearly 12 inches of rain fell on the city from Thursday through the weekend. Both of the city's main airports stayed open, but flooded roads kept Thai Airways ground handlers from getting to work. Add broken baggage carts and some arriving passengers waited up to six hours for their luggage.

0:54Tasmin Lockwood: One Thai Airways flight carrying athletes to the Asian Games left nearly eight hours late. Airlines responded with flexibility. Thai Airways, Thai Air Asia and Thai Vietjet are all offering free or fee-free changes for affected travellers. Here's the surprise. Hotels are mostly fine. The Thai Hotels Association says cancellations are running at normal levels and minor hotels says the impact on guests has been very limited. The real risk is Golden Week. Before the floods, miners' Chinese room nights for the holiday were up 78 % ahead of last year. Now, Thailand's tourism authority warns that heavy rain could cut arrivals from western China by 15 to 20%.

1:38Tasmin Lockwood: Some travelers are already switching to Krabi, Koh Samu, and Hao Hin. The bottom line? Thailand may keep the Golden Week spending, but Bangkok could lose its share of it in a year where arrivals are already down. Next, Expedia is cutting again, and this round hits the data team. A Washington state filing shows Expedia eliminating 58 roles in Seattle between late November and December 1st. 18 of them are in data science and machine learning. The list also includes a VP of finance, a VP of operations, and five director-level roles. Skift also found impacted employees in Illinois and Florida. Expedia says the changes are mostly about simplifying its global finance team.

2:27Tasmin Lockwood: It means fewer middle managers, with each remaining manager overseeing more people. That fits CEO Adrian Gorin's message at Skift Global Forum this week. She wants to see a company running more efficiently and effectively. The takeaway? Expedia's efficiency push is no longer just a slogan. It's showing up in the org chart. Finally, Carnival Cruise Line is skipping the luxury arms race on purpose. While airlines and hotels chase premium travelers, Carnival President Christine Duffy put it simply at Skiff Global Forum. That's not what Carnival's brand is. Instead, the cruise line is doubling down on affordability and families.

3:08Tasmin Lockwood: About half of Americans live within a five-hour drive of a Carnival port, which keeps costs down. Carnival is adding more connecting cabins for multi-generational groups, plus adult-only spaces because, as Duffy said, even grandparents don't want to be with the kids all day. Guest habits are shifting too. Nobody wants a 90-minute dinner anymore. So Carnival launched an express dining experience that lets you get in and out in under an hour. Its exclusive destination on Grand Bahama, Celebration Quay, drew roughly 2 million visitors in its first year. and a new ship class carrying about 8 ,000 guests is on the way.

3:46Tasmin Lockwood: Affordable does not mean not spending. Higher guest spend added$76 million to Carnival Corp's revenue in the three months ending May 31st. The point? Carnival's bet is that value, done well, is its own kind of premium. That's your SCIFT Daily Briefing for Tuesday, September 29th. For more travel industry news and sharp analysis, head to skiff.com and sign up for the daily newsletter at skiff.com forward slash daily.