Bangkok International Airport

After I had changed money for my night in Bangkok on the 29th May, I decided to have a quick visit in every of the Thai Lounges. The one opposite gate 15 is huge and had a good selection of food and beverage. Unfortunately no window and the chairs are packed in some sort of cover, which was ugly.

Several covers had stains and they do not really feel comfortable. The Thai lounge at the other end of the terminal near the LH Frequent Traveller Lounge was downstairs and therefore offered some nice views to the tarmac but had the same sort of cover over the chairs. Food was limited so was beverage. Two PC Terminals were available. Only one lavatory for each gender is not that much if the lounge is full. This lounge is also used by Emirates and LTU.

After a quick visit in the FTL Lounge – the selection of newspapers and magazines is better than in every other lounge and honestly I do not understand why the reputation of this lounge is that bad – I decided to walk to my favourite Thai Business Lounge between Pier 3 and 4 and took a seat in the upper floor. Some passenger seems not to know that there is an upper floor as in the lover floor many seats were occupied while the upper floor was nearly empty when I arrived, but became more crowded later on.

I checked mails, read flyertalk and booked a bicycle tour in Bali for Saturday morning together with flyertalker d.a.s.. There is one pc with a printer one could use – very welcome at this afternoon to print my voucher for this tour.

I surfed flyertalk for some minutes but get rid off the Asian keyboard and changed to my laptop. The plugs and sockets are the same than in Germany so I can charge my laptop and use the free W-Lan for some fifteen minutes. For the next hour or so I wrote a short summary for a project at work, a collegue of me had requested by mail, not knowing I was in holiday. But being a nice colleague and having all documents I needed on my laptop, I wrote it in less than 40 minutes and mailed it. I also put a bit of work in this trip report and had a snack and drank some Water and espresso and read in the FAZ I brought with me from the LH FTL Lounge.

I had a look, but there is no sign for Star Gold at the entrance. I am not sure, if one can use this lounge as Star Gold flying Economy.

25 May 2006
BKK – SIN
[Bangkok International – Singapore Changi]
TG 409 (Thai Airways); Airbus A 330 – 300
Gate 11
16:15 – 19:35 [effective 16:18 – 19:35]
Business Class
Seat 14 A

Boarding was announced to start at 15:40 and as I know gate 11 as quite a walk from the Lounge I left the lounge at 15:35. There is an additional security check before gate 15, which took some time, as several passengers were queuing. Gate 15 has a waiting area of its own and one got the boarding pass after entering the waiting area. It is like at Singapore’s Changi Airport. The waiting area was full and it looked like the flight would be fully booked. Well load in Economy was 100% while Business was 90%. There was not First Class on this flight.

Boarding started very late at 15:50 with First & Business Class Passengers and Star Gold. I was surprised to sea the agent holding also the First Class Sign and also announcing boarding for First Class as there was no First class on this flight. Economy Class Passengers were blocking the jet bridge entrance and it took several “Excuse me, could you let me pass”. Very annoying these passengers on the cheap seats blocking you way ….. Boarding for Business Class was through an own jet bridge and being among the first passengers on board I was greeted by a friendly flight attendant.

I took my seat and stored my hand luggage in the overhead bin. While I was doing this a flight attendant approached and offered me a glass of champagne, orange juice or a mix of orange juice and champagne as pre departure drink. I took a glass of champagne

A few minutes later headphones were distributed and a bit later a hot towel service was offered. On this flight my neighbour seat was taken by another passengers. Again, magazines and newspapers were distributed on the ground, this time Thai and Singaporean Papers and in addition the IHT.

We pushed back at 16:18 and menus were distributed during push back. During the safety demonstration tape the captain came over the microphone telling us that it would take a bit longer than expected to be airborne, as we had to let pass two other smaller planes. Finally and from my point of view not that much late, wheels were up at 16:30.

A first beverage and assorted nuts service began after a few minutes after the fasten seat belt signs were switched off. This time, I ordered a Tonic Water and got the whole can. Meal orders were taken and I looked in the menu, which I had not done before .

The Wine List is on every flight the same.

I choose the lamb curry with sounded very well. Tables were laid with linen. The first course was brought from the cart along with the tray. The salad was okay, but the Pesto does not taste like “Prawn Pesto”, more like a regular pesto made from herbs. The curry was okay, tasteful but not as spicy and hot as expected. I decided to have the Marsanny Louis Latour with the lamb. I know, not the best option, but I wanted to try this one and it might be a good opportunity to have a red instead of a white wine onboard an aircraft.

This time the food was again not of the expected quality. The portion was large however. I was a bit surprised, you should expect better quality on an flight departing from the home airport of an airline.

After meal service was finished – I skipped dessert, I reclined my seat and relaxed a little bit while I listen to the classic music channel of the audio and video system. As expected, it was the old Business Class and it was in the same condition than on the plane from Hong Kong to Bangkok. This means not that bad at all.

On such a short flight, no amenity kits are distributed.

Immigration cards were distributed before and after the meal service. I had asked the flight attendant on the ground about the immigration form and got it right away and therefore had filled it while the other passengers were boarding the plane.

We finally touched down at 19:28 and arrived at our gate at Terminal 1 in time at 19:35.

This time, it took some time before I was able to leave the plane, because my seat neighbour had blocked my belonging in the overhead bin. Not a big problem, because I would not catch the shuttle to the Le Meriden Changi Village anyway.

Immigration was really empty and I was in the arrival hall at 19:50. I decided to take a taxi to the Le Meridien Changi and headed for the taxi stand. Though it was not a short line, it was less than five minutes before I sat in the taxi and told a not very happy taxi driver my hotel – I think he expected a longer ride.

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