Welcome back to my trip through Thailand.
Our christmas trip in Thailand was nearing the end and my wife and I had to reposition back to Bangkok. Krabi is well-connected to Bangkok with almost all carriers in Thailand, though we chose Thai Lion Air for this flight as it gave us the best departing time to Bangkok for a very fair price. The flight was booked with 20 KG baggage and a seat 20A, though I was bumped up the day earlier to Seat 2A as the aircraft was changed to a larger Boeing 737-900ER.
Flight routing
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- 7SL708 - Economy - Krabi → Bangkok - Boeing 737-900ER
A private taxi or Shared Minivan from Ao Nang are easily arranged the day prior to your departure via one of those many tourist stalls for 500 or 150 THB. Given that I received a promotion code that I had to use via Booking.com, I decided to book my private taxi for the very first time via Booking.com and received the details of my driver the day prior to the departure. The company informed me that a Toyota Camry would be used for our ride, so we were somewhat surprised when the driver turned out to be driving a Minivan.
We told the driver to proceed to Terminal 2, which is used for domestic departures in Krabi, while Terminal 1 is being used for international departures. While Krabi isn't the largest airport, they do have a few seasonal intercontinental flights from Russia and the Scandinavian region.
Terminal 2 of Krabi is an old terminal, tend to be overcrowded with insufficient seating availabilty. Most passengers opted to wait in line for their check-in counter, while check-in wasn't even open.
We managed to grab a seat at the seating section as some counter went open and a lot of passengers moved to drop-off their bags.
Bored of sitting and we wanted to grab a bit in the restaurant downstairs as soon as possible as we didn't have any breakfast as if yet, we moved into the line for our flight. Soon after the photo below, the line was split into three lines for all kiosks and we dropped our luggage off within a matter of minutes.
The only proper restaurant available within Terminal 2 is Immsook Restaurant, which is located on the ground floor. Not the best nor the cheapest, but it does provide you with a view over the apron.
It is nicely decorated by flowers and plants.
While waiting for our food, we had a view of this Airbus A320 of Thai Smile who was busy boarding for it's flight to Bangkok Suvarnabhumi.
By the time we were finished with our meal, the Thai Smile A320 was replaced by an Airbus A319 of Bangkok Airways.
After our meal with about an hour spare to departure, we went up again to the departure section. Security took about 5 minutes to clear and the first thing you'll see is a seating section that is reserved for C.I.Q. passengers who will be connecting on either Don Mueang or Suvarnabhumi to an international flight.
The seating section in Terminal 2 hall is limited and tends to be overcrowded with a lot of passengers blocking more than one seat by laying down on the seats. The terminal has a few shops and coffee shops.
We found a seat near the window which gave us a view of this A320 of Thai AirAsia being pushed back for it's departure to Bangkok Don Mueang.
The Boeing 787 of TUI Airways (UK) arrived from Stockholm who was performing this flight on behalf of TUI fly Nordic.
And the Bangkok Airways A319 from earlier was now departing to Bangkok Suvarnabhumi.
With a delay of thirty minutes, our aircraft decided to show up. Our flight to Bangkok Don Mueang would be performed by HS-LTT, which is a 7.6 year old (at time of flying) Boeing 737-900ER who has solely been in service of Thai Lion Air and delivered to them in May 2015. It is also powered by two CFMI CFM56 engines.
About 20 minutes past our scheduled departure, boarding was called. Boarding was very slow and the aircraft was not ready yet.
The seat 2A came with excellent legroom as there is no true window seat on Seat 1A in Thai Lion's Boeing 737-900ER, but do mind that the seat width is not the most comfortable one given that the table is on the side of you.
The view of my seat.
The seat is also equipped with the newer individual airvents and the obvious reading light.
27 minutes past our scheduled departure, we were finally pushing back for our flight to Bangkok when this Airbus A320 of Thai AirAsia arrived from Chiang Mai. The exact same aircraft that brought us to Krabi from Chiang Mai too four days earlier.
You can clearly see the difference between the domestic terminal on the left and the large terminal building on the right. With so many gates available and limited international flights, the Boeing 787 of TUI was still parked at a remote stand to reduce parking fee's I assume.
Lining up for Runway 14.
With a quick departure and an early left turn to be flying in the correct direction as soon as possible.
The Boeing 737-900ER's cabin.
With the missing seat in row 1, the two windows made it feel spacious, yet the seat's width was drastically reduced. Though if you fancy those legrooms, be sure to book seat 2A as the seat on 2F was blocked by a seat on row 1.
The safety card for your seat can be found in the seat of your neighbour and the conditions of them were rather poor as they've been used so much and never been replaced by a newer version.
About thirty minutes into the flight, the BoB service was engaged by one flight attendant, though not a lot of people made use of it. Unfortunately the cabin showed quite a lot of wear and wasn't properly cleaned in some spots.
Somewhere above Thailand with a window that was full of scratches.
Landing was tough on 22R and would result in a total delay of just 10 minutes.
A right turn leaving the runway, I spotted this full-white Airbus A320 with no activities around it other than a semi-opened cargo door.
Another white aircraft was found a few parking spots further down the aircraft. HS-PGB is an ATR 72-500 that used to fly for Bangkok Airways. I've done a flight with this bird back in 2008 from Siem Reap to Pnomh Penh when Bangkok Airways used to do flights on behalf of Seam Reap Airways Int'l.
A few more parked birds.
We parked next to a neiighbouring 737-900ER of Thai Lion.
Disembarkation followed soon and the huge advantage of being seated in front is that you'll be out of there in no time.
The disadvantage however is that you'll be waiting at the baggage claim for a bit.
Belt 11 was for our flight and it took about 10 minutes for our bags to be picked up.
After that my wife and I grabbed a taxi, which took about 35 minutes to arrange, to the Shangri-La hotel Bangkok.
Thanks Thomas for sharing this FR!
Interesting to see a B737-900 outside of the US. What a bizarre seating configuration with only 2 seats in Row 1. They have a bulkhead, but still managed to squeeze in an additional row?
There are a few operators with them in Asia and Europe, but yeah it's not a common bird to be found. I assume they squeezed an additional seat in it by removing a storage locker that was common to be there in the past years, though the seat width of my seat was unpleasant for many caucausian persons I assume.
Yikes, that's a tight config to have an extra row on seats that far up front! But if it's a good price, like you say, then it's perfectly fine to bring you from point A to B at a good value. If prices were the same though, I'm probably go with Air Asia over Lion for the wider seats on the Airbus family vs Boeing, seat pitch being the same tight 28-29" on both.
Thanks for sharing!
The seat pitch and condition of the aircraft are a lot to be desired indeed and you pay for what you get. The time we booked the flight, it was the cheapest option and the best timing for us, though despite FD being the best among the three to DMK, my preferred choice remains DD for flying to DMK ?. Thanks for stopping by Kevin!