Review of Thai Airways flight Bangkok → Frankfurt in Economy

Unfortunately it was time to return to home with my wife after our great christmas holidays in Thailand. Both itineraries of Singapore Airlines & THAI were bought by me as a one-way as either airline with return tickets were quite expensive to do so, so the last two legs will be with THAI to Frankfurt and continue with Lufthansa for a short hop to Amsterdam.

At roughly 9 AM, my wife and I checked out from our hotel, which was Shangri-La Bangkok and asked for a taxi to Suvarnabhumi. The friendly taxi driver agreed to drive us to the airport with the taximeter, which equalled to roughly 280 THB….. He also told us that the Shangri-la has a cheating scheme with a taxi driver around the corner where they charge you 800 THB to proceed to the airport, but they're not using them when a Thai person is asking for one, so let this be a warning to not overpay for your journey :)! 

The chap brought us over in front of the THAI drop-off, which turns out to be the markings for the domestic & Business class of THAI, which we only found out after.

The discovery was made within the terminal building and that H section was being used for THAI international flights. The terminal at this point was quite busy, which made it look like Covid-19 never been around us, which of course is an absolute good thing!

Check-in was quite busy and the pace was rather slow, despite 5 or 6 check-in counters being used for approximately 3 international departures. With about 1 hour and 20 minutes to our departure, one of the ground attendants picked us and other travellers to Frankfurt out to give priority for check-in as the check-in was closing for Frankfurt. We were about 1 hour in line and had yet to complete 20 minutes of waiting if we were to be in line.

Security was quite busy too, but took not more than 15 minutes to clear and passport control did only take 5 minutes due to my wife as I was able to join with her to the THAI passport counters. Once all formalities gone and about 20 minutes left to boarding, we were in with this iconic statue of Bangkok still going strong.

As our departure would be from Gate C4, we slowly moved our way to here. My wife send me photos of Suvarnabhumi a year ago when everything was closed, but by now the stores were alive and kicking once again with many stores being replaced by other stores. In the past it used to be similar shops and became quite boring, yet there was now more of a variety of shops, though with brands most common travellers will not bother with due to their price tags.

Apparently the toilet and human waste became the river of Life……., though the toilet's entry was nicely decorated and becomes visually more appealing.

Though natural light is not the best within the terminal.

We're approaching the end of the duty free area.

With these nice little decorated shop on the mainpoint, which is a shop powered by King Power. I bought the Mangosteen wine & an Thai white wine from there, which I usually do with my last few Thai Baths. 

After grabbing a coffee, we went down to Gate C4, who was already boarding for it's flight to Frankfurt.

And here is our bird that will bring us to Frankfurt. It's HS-TKP, which is a 9,5 year old (at time of flying) Boeing 777-300ER which was newly delivered to THAI in July 2013 and can carry up to 348 passengers (42 in Business Class, 306 in Economy) and is named Sri-amphorn. It is powered by two powerful General Electric GE90 engines.

As my wife and me were one of the last to board, we were welcomed by the flight attendants. Seat 49A would be the seat for my flight to Bangkok with more than decent legroom and a footholder, which I never use. Legroom was fine, but it turned out that the seats were unable to recline for me, my wife and apparently the passenger in front of me too as we all tried it several times. The seat is also equiped with an outdated IFE system and was very slow to respond.

The view however from my seat was nothing to complain about.

A view of the cabin nearing completion. The captain checked in with us welcoming us aboard and enjoy the royal service given by THAI (Let's be the judge of that later, shall we?). He also informed us that we would be pushing back roughly 20 minutes past our scheduled departure time due to cargo still being loaded.

As promised by the captain, pushback was indeed 20 minutes past our scheduled departure time.

Five minutes later, we were rolling for a departure to Frankfurt.

The only literature in your seat pocket contained of a safety card for the 777-300ER and a sickbag. No magazine was delivered nor would there be any wi-fi on-board.

Shortly after departure one flight attendant gave each of us an headset, which was of very bad quality. I had to put the volume on one of the loudest volume to be able to listen to any film, series or music…… 

About 1.5 hours into the flight, the flight crew came around to serve us some food. It's also that time that I discovered my table being quite dirty with some food leftovers stuck to the table and some signs of yellow curry or similar on it. The photo unfortunately does not do justice, but I had to use the wet wipe that was served with the food to clean my table.

About 2 hours into the flight, I received my meal. It was an option between pasta or green curry. 

Obviously being a Thai airline, I opted for the green curry. The meal came with a Potato salad with some slices of chicken, a breadroll, butter, crackers, canary cheese and a chocolate cake. A bottle of water was also handed to you.

The main meal itself was very tasteful, though the side dishes were a lot to be desired. 

Once done with their meal services, the flight attendants came around to provide us with a complimentary drink service. I opted for a coffee and a white wine. 

An hour later, the table was cleaned and I took this opportunity to proceed to one of the lavatories on board of our aircraft. It was very clean about 3 hours into the flight and nothing to complain about to be fair. Though the amenities consisted just of a body spray and some handsoap.

Took a photo of the most forward economy cabin. Lots of passengers on the left closed their window as the sun was shining through and the cabin itself was already rather hot. It would have been my biggest complain though.

About six hours into the flight, I asked one of the flight attendants whether it was possible to provide me with a Singha beer. She told me that she can provide me with a soda or any other drink, but in case I wanted an alcoholic beverage, I had to proceed to one of their galleys as that was the policy of the airline…. Somehow I found it weird, but in someway I could understand. I simply asked her to provide me with a diet coke instead, which I enjoyed viewing the sunset. 

The 2nd meal service was performed about 7.5 hours into the flight, which was rather early to be fair.

This time we were given a choice to be choosing between Fish & Rice or Beef with potatoes. I opted for the first one as I do not fancy potatoes. It was served with a salad of Tuna, a cake, breadroll with butter, Canary cheese and a bottle of water.

Once again the main meal being very tasteful with the fish being the highlight and the starter of Tuna was not bad either, but the others were once again very dry and hard to consume. 

Served with a beer Singha.

Cleanup was done about an hour after the meal service again and the cabin would be dimmed once again. I also took an opportunity to once again continue to one of the lavatories, which so far was still very clean somehow.

The temperature of the cabin as I said previously was rather on the hot side and the aircraft was not installed with individual air vents.

I almost forgot to report it, but the seat also came with a pillow and a blanket. The blanket was the same as it was years ago and wasn't too bad compared to the cheap cloth of some other airlines.

Unlike my flight with Singapore Airlines were drinks were constantly offered by flight attendants, this didn't happen with THAI and you needed to specifically ask one of the flight attendants to serve you. It's probably a way for THAI to reduce the expenses, though the flight attendants were great and did their best to serve us.

As I assumed food service for this flight was done about 4 hours earlier, I was surprised by the flight attendants handing out a sandwich with ham and cheese and a bottle of water about two hours prior to landing. The sandwich however was nothing remarkable with the bread being on a dryer side.

About an hour later we were already in our decent for an approach on 25C, which reduced the travel time to our gate by a lot.

Disembarking followed soon and we had about 1.5 hours to catch our connection to Amsterdam with the aircraft already being ready to be loaded by catering for the return leg to Bangkok Suvarnabhumi.

Off to the next departure!