Review of Bhutan Airlines flight from Bangkok to Kolkata in Economy

The first Bhutan Airlines economy review!

Background

B3 has a daily BKK-CCU-PBH service and fifth freedom rights between Bangkok and Kolkata. The timings of their BKK-CCU service aren't as great as they are for CCU-BKK but it's still more reasonable than IndiGo, Thai, or Thai AirAsia. While connecting straight through to Kolkata from Perth is possible with Thai, it only works on certain days and anyway gets into CCU very late.
This flight was booked on Cleartrip for around ₹15k, just under $180.

Suvarnabhumi Airport & Boarding

There was no line at check-in, partially because the business check-in was being used for economy passengers. But for some reason it took almost 20 minutes to check-in, most of that time just waiting for the lady who didn't seem to be doing anything.

There are statues like this all over the check-in area.

Lots of interesting flight this morning, including Aeroflot's seven hour 737-800 service to Tolmachevo Airport in Siberia's largest city, Novosibirsk, and Air Austral's 777 flight to Saint-Denis de La Réunion. The picture is very blurry but you can still make out most of the airlines.

There was no wait at security and less than a minute at immigration.
Today's Bhutan Airlines flight to Kolkata will depart just two gates down from my BKK-PER flight on Thai Airways International a few days earlier.

Boarding was of course by bus since Bhutan Airlines aircraft in Bangkok seem to always park at a remote stand.

Planespotting

Unfortunately the bus only went past aircraft from Thailand, so I didn't get to see any international planes (other than our own of course). There were still some interesting aircraft though, including these WOW Air-liveried A321s flying for Thai VietJet Air.

A Thai AirAsia A320

Some Bangkok Airways A320s

I'm not sure what that was landing behind the Thai A330

Bangkok Airways ATR 72

Thai VietJet A321 and some Thai Airways A320s

Bangkok Airways A320s

And finally A5-RIM, our aircraft for today and the same A319 that I flew CCU-BKK.

Seat & Departure

I'm not sure how much this cabin has been changed since A5-RIM's days with Frontier and Mexicana (other than the headrest covers and seatbelts).

There are personal air vents and lights.

The headrest is slightly adjustable.

Unfortunately row 8 is just ahead of the exit row and the seats don't recline.
The seatback pocket contains two magazines, a sickness bag, and a safety card.

Lots of planes visible from my window.

You can even see the front of the airport terminal.

More aircraft become visible as we push back, including this Thai 777

And some of the many, many, parked Thai widebodies.

A Thai 777 landing next to us.

Another picture of the parked planes.

A Thai A350 in the Star Alliance livery landing.

A Thai widebody taking off into the sunrise.

Great views of Bangkok, the sunrise, and the coast as we take off.

IFE, Breakfast & In-Flight

Breakfast took a while to get served out so let's have a look at the IFE in the meantime. Bhutan Airlines offers streaming entertainment on their flights and they have a decent selection.

It can be a little slow at times but it was good overall and had more than enough content for this short flight. Bhutan Airlines' competitors on this route, Thai (on the A320s) and IndiGo, don't offer any IFE, although I think Thai AirAsia has streaming entertainment.

Interestingly, Bhutan Airlines doesn't serve special meals before the regular meals unlike most airlines. Instead they serve them all together.

It's all from Thai Airways catering. The sides and the jam were very interesting. Instead of a dessert, with the VJML they have an extra thing of fruit, so there are two servings of fruit. The jam comes from Adelaide in South Australia, it was the same jam they served on my flight with them in January. I have no idea why a Thai catering company is using South Australian jam.
Now, there was jam and butter but no bread roll for it to go with. I asked the FA if they had any bread and she immediately went and found some which was really nice.

The main course was identical to the one on my BKK-PER flight with Thai (spot the differences!):

There was a beverage service during the meal and I got mango juice, I really liked it from the last flight.

The meal was good overall, somehow it felt better than the same meal on Thai. Great for an economy meal on such a short flight. It wasn't quite as good as the meal on the CCU-BKK flight, but lunches and dinners are almost always better than breakfasts on flights.

While clearing the trays, the crew handed out bottles of water which was great since there wouldn't be any more beverage services. On my last B3 flight they didn't do this, even though that was business!

Nothing much happened for the rest of the flight, I watched a movie but of course the flight wasn't even long enough for me to finish it.
The bathroom was clean and had some nice (fake) flowers inside.
Shortly before landing I used the call button to request another mango juice.

I really like this mango juice!

Arrival & Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose Airport

Welcome to Kolkata!

There was no line at immigration, but there were arrival cards that non-Indian citizens needed to fill out, but they hadn't handed any out on the plane so by the time they were filled a small line had appeared.
There's a very annoying system in CCU where after immigration when you head downstairs to the baggage claim you need to put carry-ons through a scanner
At least there wasn't much of a wait for the bags to arrive.

The baggage claim area has lots of pictures of different places and activities from around India.

I'll end this one here, thanks for reading.