After all the cheap and good food, it was time to bade goodbye to Bangkok. No worries, I would be back in 2 month's time!
Flew on the last Thai Air Asia flight back to SIN, departing at 1645hrs, which is a descent timing as both Tiger and Jetstar flights depart much later and arrives in SIN after midnight (midnight = high taxi surcharges). Arrive at the airport about 1hr45min before departure and checked in at the desk. Self-check-in machines were also available but did not use them as there was no one at the counter check-in desks anyway. No wait for check-in.
We were assigned seats 21A and B. Proceeded through immigration and security right after.
20 August 2011
Thai Air Asia
FD 3505
Bangkok (BKK) - Singapore
A320
HS-ABH
Budget Class
Departure gate has an aerobridge and the plane was parked beside a EK A380 departing for Hong Kong.
HS-ABH being prepared for our flight. The windows at BKK were full of streaks!
Thai A333 parked beside.
Boarding. Crew were busier checking on the catering items rather than assisting passengers in the boarding process. Load around 60-70% full and boarding was completed rather swiftly.
At the gate.
Seat pitch was tight as usual on a budget flight. Seat 21C was also taken up.
Doors closed on time and we pushed back with safety demo.
Ethiopian B763, departing for HKG?
Emirates A380 that was parked beside us. Preparing for the short hop to HKG.
Taxi to the runway. Visible are 4 airlines which had pulled out of SIN (SK, LX, OS and GF).
Wing reflecting the sunlight.
Takeoff from Rwy19L for the 2hrs flight to SIN.
Climbing to 36000ft.
Post takeoff announcement.
Blue skies.
Really lots of stuff in the seat pocket (not including the food crumbs).
Meal service started. A set of crew first handed out pre-ordered meals while another set followed behind with the sales cart.
We had pre-ordered a meal each for 120Baht including a cup of water.
Chicken satay. 5 big sticks but did not taste that great. Probably because it was catered in Thailand instead of Malaysia? And where are the rice cakes??
Green curry chicken with rice. A much better option.
We also tried the monthly special, Grilled chicken with sticky rice, for 160Baht (comes with a can of root beer). Tasted ok.
After dinner and gazing out the window.
Cabin view.
Seeing that the last 2 rows of the plane was empty, we shifted to the rear. However, the legroom on row 29 on FD's A320 was equally horrible as on Jetstar! Notice: AVOID THE LAST FEW ROWS ON ALL BUDGET AIRLINE A320s!
Sunset.
Soon started descent. Interesting to note, even though descent has started (20min to landing), the crew still served a passenger a hot meal when he requested to purchase one! 15min to touchdown, another pax requested to purchase a coffee and the crew also served her! On any other Singapore based airline, all the crew would have prepared the cabin for landing and strapped up in their jumpseats by this time.
Approach over Batam.
Pilots only announced for the crew to be strapped for landing when the gears are down, which was less than 5mins to touchdown?
Along East Coast beach.
Landed on Rwy02L 10minutes early.
Parked beside another Jetstar-Valuair plane.
My point of view rating is 3/10
my point of view rating is 10/10