5. Why did Thai Airways end up choosing FOIL? Songkran Piyavasti, the CFO of Thai Airways, was planning a round of capital raising to meet the airline’s fleet expansion plans and needed to raise up to US$800 million in debt by June 2010. Traditionally, the company had financed its aircraft acquisitions through the issuance of baht-denominated debentures and bank loans from Thai banks. However, in the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis, the airline had sought to diversify its funding sources; it had raised debt from international capital markets through dollar- and euro-denominated loans from international banks, and it had increasingly used structured lease instruments to finance its capital expenditures.