Review of Thai Airways flight from Bangkok to Paris in Business

return to asia

I suppose it was too much to ask for without a major mishap on one of my trips.  It's part of why I avoided writing the rest of this trip report for so long.  TLDR: I had a very painful flight cancellation that ruined the return trip for me and forced me into a very last-minute, inconvenient routing on Star Alliance instead of what was originally an aspirational flight.  I won't get into details, but at least this was a lie-flat trip back to the US.

bangkok Suvamabhumi airport (bkk)

Thai Airways has a massive row of business class check-in counters right by the fast track entrance.

All premium cabin passengers, as well as various other groups of passengers are eligible for fast track, which saves a bit of time.

thai airways business class lounge

The Thai Airways business class lounge was easy enough to find right after security.  Even though it was a full week into January, Christmas decorations were still up.

The lounge is one very long corridor with more or less the same seating throughout.  Unfortunately, despite plenty of seats, the outlet situation was not so great.

There are various food or beverage stations found throughout, such as this small buffet below.

There is a bigger main buffet area with bar seating and more traditional tables.

The buffet wasn't very exciting, with a few hot and cold options.

You can get miso soup to order from the kitchen counter though.

The alcohol selection varied throughout the lounge, from self serve wine . . .

. . . to staffed bars.  The bars had much better options to drink, which were about average for J lounges.

I spent some time in this lounge and had dinner before switching over to the Singapore Lounge (right around when the last SQ flight was scheduled to depart).

silverKris lounge (BKK)

The SilverKris Lounge at BKK can be found opposite of Gate D7.

It's a smaller, but still spacious area with classy decor.

I went to the lounge after the last SQ flight began boarding so it was almost entirely empty.

I thought the food options were ever so slightly better than in the Thai Airways lounge, albeit without the made-to-order soup option.

You do have options for Asahi or Singha beer, poured using the famous Japanese beer pouring machines.

A central bar offered various beverages.

The wine selection was on par with the Thai Airways lounge, and not terribly exciting.

I asked for a glass of champagne and when the bartender saw me taking a picture of the wine selection, he proactively placed the bottle of champagne on the bar so I can take a picture.  H. Lanvin is a decent champagne for a J lounge–I didn't take notes on the Thai offerings, but I remember that the Lanvin was better than what was offered there.

I left the SQ lounge at 11pm when it closed and went to a Thai Airways lounge closer to my gate.  No report for that lounge–it was packed despite the late hour and the amenities were worse than the main Thai lounge.

tg930

My flight to CDG was on HS-TKR, a 10 years-old Boeing 777-300ER.

Boarding was a bit chaotic with a massive rush when they announced it at 11:50pm (25 minutes after scheduled).

TG offers staggered business class seats spread across two J cabins on its 777-300ERs.  There was no first class cabin on this plane though I understand now Thai has a few 777s with first class flying select routes.

I was in 16B, one of the aisle-adjacent window seats in the forward cabin.  By the time I bought this ticket this was the last window seat left.  You can see it's quite exposed.

The seats are a bit dated, with a small IFE, somewhat narrow footwell, and rather limited storage.  A single power outlet can be found below the window-adjacent counter.

Pillow, bedding, and slippers are already waiting for you at the seat.

The slippers were fine, comparable to normal (non-luxury) hotel slippers.

The amenity was also already waiting for you at the seat and contained the usual goodies.  As seem to be more standard in Asia, a small shoehorn is provided.

I was quickly welcomed onboard with a hot towel.  Perhaps due to the lateness of the flight (or the lateness of boarding), I was not offered a predeparture beverage.  In any case, boarding finished at 12:16am and we pushed back at 12:19am.  Very efficient despite the late start!  I really don't understand why here in the US we are absolutely the slowest to board and push back .  After quite a bit of taxing we took off at 12:39am.

Here's a look at the menu, nothing exciting, but all-in-all a pretty decent selection of food for business class.  I'd take this over US airline offerings certainly.

Service began 20 minutes after takeoff with a ramekin of nuts.

I had a glass of Laurent Perrier to start.

My apologies for the blurriness of the food pictures next–the lighting was really poor.  The amuse bouche were: 1) smoked duck stuffed with herb cream cheese and 2) Thai-style spicy tuna salad on crunchy cucumber.  They were fairly decent.

For the appetizer, there was only one option: Thai-style spicy quinoa salad with crab meat and ebiko.  I opted to have garlic bread with it.  Both the appetizer and the bread were decent.

For my main, I opted for tiger prawns in Panaeng Curry.  Maybe due to the altitude or the fact that it's reheated, but this turned out to be the weakest course.  For those who may be concerned, it was not spicy (or at most the mildest of spiciness).

For dessert, I had the coconut panna cotta with Tab-tim krob, which was okay.  Part of the problem with this meal was that I had just spent 4 days in Thailand eating the best of its street food and restaurants–it's going to be hard to compare.  For this reason, I always avoid eating the Japanese option when departing from Japan.

After my meal I asked for a cup of chamomile tea.

The FA helped me set up the mattress pad, which was a bit thin, but better than just having the seat.

I quickly went to the lavatory afterwards to freshen up a bit before sleeping.  Not much in the way of amenities here and like all Boeing bathrooms, rather tight.

I slept reasonably well and woke up a bit before breakfast time.  Oddly enough, lights were turned back on with 2 hours 22 minutes left in-flight.  Often airlines would leave it to 90 minutes or sometimes even one hour before landing to maximize sleep.

I opted for the steamed chicken thigh for my breakfast main and also had a croissant and a rather odd-looking variant of the youtiao as my bread.  Breakfast wasn't bad either.

The rest of the flight was very uneventful.  The only thing that happened was FAs stopped by to collect headphones 30 minutes before landing (perhaps taking a leaf out of American's playbook?).

We landed at 6:51am and was at our gate 7am, slightly early despite a late departure.

Unfortunately, this was the only picture I managed to take of the plane–with views being blocked on departure and arrival.  Surprisingly, EU passport control was very quick this morning so I was onto the next part of my journey without delay.