Welcome to my trip report on Thai Airways!
My ride: HS-TXD
Introduction
Originally I booked myself with Nok Air to fly from Hat Yai to Bangkok (DMK) but because the airline cancelled the afternoon flight due to operational reason, I had no choice but to cancel my ticket and rebooked myself with Thai to fly out in the early afternoon. I could have switched myself to the morning flight with Nok but that is 8 am in the morning, too early for my liking so with that, I would fly with Thai and the A320 aircraft that it is currently operating used to operate for it's subsidiary, Thai Smile. Thai Airways decided to shut down Thai Smile's operation and intergrate it into its own, to save operation cost. So with that, I get to experience how life is like for the former Thai Smile's A320 aircraft.
You can check out my past flight experience with Thai Smile over here.
So without further ado, let's begin this trip report. Hope you find the information useful.
About Hat Yai Airport
Hat Yai International Airport is located in the Khlong Hoi Khong district near the city of Hat Yai and is an operating base for Thai Air Asia. This airport became an international airport in 1972 and serve domestic and international flights. With a single runway in operation, the traffic to this airport is limited with only Bangkok Airways, Batik Air Malaysia, Nok Air, Scoot, Thai Air Asia, Thai Airways, Thai Lion Air and Thai Vietjet Air currently utilise this airport.
Map of Hat Yai Airport (Photo: Flightradar24)
Booking
I used the mobile app to do the booking and was able to access my itinerary on both the mobile app and website without issue.
These were the number of seats left occupied when I did my online check-in.
The mobile app display of your itinerary looks neat.
This is the website's version. I wonder why the airline chooses high numbers for it's A320 seating rows. Does anyone knows?
I had no issues doing my booking and checking my itinerary but in terms of user-friendliness, I give it a rating of 3 out of 5 points.
On the day of departure
After checking out from the hotel, I had to wait for a while before my ride came. Usually I have no issues until this time when the driver of the first booking decided to play games by accepting my booking and stationed his car about a few blocks away from my hotel and kept me waiting. For whatever reason it is, it's not good to keep your passengers waiting, don't accept the booking if you cannot deliver. So after giving him some time, I cancelled the booking and fortunately I didn't occur any additional fees for it. The next driver came within 2 minutes and I left the hotel premises after 15 minutes of waiting.
The ride to the airport took about 15 minutes.
The airport brings back fond memories of the past.
At least there was no security checks at the entrance so anyone could enter the terminal freely.
I went to the check-in counters for my flight. When I reached there, the counters were not opened so I decided to walk around a bit.
Airport WiFi is available at this airport.
There are shops to check out before entering the airside. I recommend you not to enter airside too early as there isn't much to do at the other side, that is if you don't have lounge access.
Fortunately the terminal was not crowded at that time.
There were a number of domestic flights going on between 1230 and 1530.
I did a check on what aircraft was flying me to Bangkok, it was HS-TXD.
I went back to the check-in counter to join the queue to check in.
The ground staff asked whether I was willing to relocate my seat to an emergency window seat and I agreed.
So my original seat was changed from seat 53A to 42A.
Once that was done, I made my way to the security and move over to the airside.
Some shops along the way and it's not a bad idea to do some last minute shopping before flying to another city.
Security check took around 5 minutes and I was at the airside.
There were a few restaurants, a lounge and a couple of shops at the airside.
It can be crowded when there are a number of flights departing around the same time.
This is the airport lounge.
Only these cardholders are eligible to access the lounge along with the business class passengers.
I settled myself into this restaurant.
This was my breakfast, a mango smoothie and a local vegetarian dish with rice.
This is the waiting area.
You need to fill in a bit of information of yourself before being allowed to log in to the airport's wifi.
Gate 5 is where our flight was departing and the Thai A320 aircraft you see in the background is my aircraft just landed.
Here she is, an 12-years old (2024) A320 aircraft inherited from Thai Smile.
The next Thai flight to Bangkok (BKK) was at 2040hrs so I cannot afford to miss this flight.
Once the announcement was made, we were allowed to board.
Welcome on board!
My ride: HS-TXD: (Photo: Suparat Chairatprasert)
Aircraft Name: Sing Buri
Airbus A320-232 (leased from Aircastle)
Original operator: Thai Smile
Configuration: CY174
Engines: 2 X IAE V2527
Transferred to Thai Airways in December 2023
Age: 12 + Years Old (2024)
5301th Airbus aircraft built
Built in Hamburg (XFW)
My route: HDY-BKK
Miles: 465
Date of departure: 11th September 2024
Airline: Thai Airways
Flight: TG264
Aircraft: Airbus A320ceo
Registration: HS-TXD
Seat: 53A changed to 42A
Gate: 5
Load: 100%
Flight Time: 1 hr 15 minutes
Actual Flight Time: 1 hr 9 minutes
Schedule Departure: 1440
Boarding: 1412
Push Back: 1437
Take Off: 1446
Schedule Arrival: 1615
Actual Arrival: 1554
Departure Runway: 26
Departure Weather: Cloudy
Arrival Runway: 19L
Arrival Weather: Partially Cloudy
My flight experience
The turn around of the A320 that flew in from Bangkok was remarkably fast and we board the aircraft about 30 minutes before departure time. All credits to the ground staff and passengers, we managed to push back 3 minutes ahead of schedule and took off 9 minutes later. Our flight was relatively smooth except for some turbulence during our journey, nothing bad.
As there is no entertainment system installed on this aircraft, we have to rely on our own devices or books to get the time past by. However the duration of this flight was too short to enjoy a movie so I spent most of the time watching the sky passing by while planning on my trip in Bangkok. Each of the passengers were given a plastic bag consists of the snack and drink, the airline should consider removing the plastic bag and hand out the snack and drink instead, I am sure the passengers can find space in their belongings to put them or enjoy them during the flight. As for the in-flight service, the crew were ok, they seem to be quite stressful with a full load of passengers on this flight (wait till they try servicing a full load of passengers on the A321neo with the notoriously unpopular Airbus's Airflex cabin ( the one with limited work space for the crew on this aircraft model). I can see why the crew hate them!
With the flight crew choose to remain silent for this flight, announcement of departure and arrival was done by the inflight supervisor and before I know it, we started our descent into BKK and after a U-turn at the northern point of BKK airport, we landed smoothly onto runway 19 Left.
Nothing spectacular about this flight but it was another to add into my flight logbook.
About the cabin products
There are 2 classes featured in this cabin, the Premium Economy Class (Row 31 to 34) and Economy Class (Row 35 to 59), for the emergency rows, there are row 41 and 42 and usually you have to pay more for the extra legroom space in the Economy Class section.
For the Premium Economy Class, the middle seat remains vacant and the seat pitch of each seat is 33 inches while for the economy class seats (row 35 to 40), the seat pitch is 31 inches, for the row 43 to 59, the seat pitch is 28 inches. The best seat pitch would be at the emergency rows, as row 41 and 42 have a legroom space of 37 inches. Lastly, all the seats have a recline of 3 inches except row 40 and 41.
These are B/E Aerospace Pinnacle seats and they are fitted with 4-way adjustable headrest and for the back of each seat, the literature holder is placed above the seat pocket (eye level to the passenger).
Photos of the cabin
This is the Premium Economy Class seats. As you can see the the reserved sign in the middle seat indicates the seat is blocked.
Each passenger receives a pillow and blanket.
This is the standard seats, I do like the colours of the fabric.
The front rows of the economy class section offer better legroom space as shown below.
I recommend any of these seats in front of the emergency rows.
This is my seat, row 42A.
The legroom space of the seats behind my seat is tighter.
The seats behind mine
Legroom space is definitely adequate for my long legs.
The view from my seat
Unfortunately, I had a seat mate but it wasn't too bad.
Legroom space in cattle class (Economy Class) does matter especially for longer secters in the medium haul range.
I had a duty for this flight and that is to standby just in case. Luckily I didn't have to find out. Of course you can request to sit somewhere else if you are not comfortable helping out in event to an emergency.
The view from my seat.
The window at my seat was badly skretched so taking photos of the outside view is a challenge.
Last few photos of the cabin as disembarkment was taking place at this time.
Although the cabin looks nice, but the aircraft interior seems to have seen better day as I find the condition to be quite a let down.
What's provided for the emergency row passenger?
A safety overwing exit briefing card
Safety Card
Disposal Bag
Only for the emergency window seats, there is an instruction guide on how to open the window plug door. (row 41 and 42)
In-flight snack
This is certainly one of the highlights of this flight, a snack bag for each passenger.
It contains of an apple pastry.
A bottle of water
The cabin crew also came around with a cart trolley to offer beverages and I chose a cup of orange juice.
A packet of wet tissue was distributed.
(Don't mind the scratched window)
We pushed back on time.
We were reaching Bangkok at this point and started our descent not long after this photo was taken.
The sight of Bangkok Airport on our left as we flew past it so that we could descend to a certain level before making a U-turn to land on runway 19 Left.
We flew past Bangkok Airport (as shown below).
Making a turn as we continued our descent.
We landed 21 minutes ahead of schedule, that's amazing even though we had to travel further just to land on runway 19 direction.
Welcome to Suvarnabhumi Airport!
Here we are, we reached our assigned gate with minutes to spare.
My Flight Summary
We had to walk quite far just to reach the main concourse.
The walk took about 15 minutes.
It took about 45 minutes for our luggages to roll out onto the baggage carousel.
Once I finally collected my luggage, I made my way to the train station and took the express train to town.
The BTS and MRT are convenient transport train system to get around the main parts of the city.
Here is my station, it took about 5 minutes to get to my hotel.
My ratings
Airline mobile app/website (User-friendliness): 3/5
Airport Experience (HDY): 2.5/5
In-Flight Service: 3.5/5
In-Flight Entertainment: 0/5
Seat Comfort: 4/5
Cabin Ambiance: 4/5
Cabin Condition: 3/5
Punctuality: 5/5
In-Flight Snack: 4/5
Cleanliness: 5/5
Overall Rating: 34/50
Percentage: 68%
Conclusion
Long gone were the days when we see wide-body aircraft flying on domestic routes with Thai Airways and its a joy for us, avgeeks as we can expect the unexpected. From Airbus A300 to the Boeing 747-400, any of these aircraft can be seen flying on the domestic routes especially from Chiang Mai to Bangkok and Phuket to Bangkok routes. Now this time, the domestic flights are majority operated by the A320 fleet as the airline is looking to find ways to operate a more efficient fleet and as it stands, the A321neo will be replacing these A320ceo in the near future.
I was happy to be able to experience Thai's hospitality on this short haul flight and while there is room for improvement for the airline to do so (better maintainance in their hard products), I am pleased with my in-flight experience such as complimentary snack and beverage which not many airlines offer on the domestic routes and the comfortable seat. Overall, I would not hestiate to fly with this airline again and with my past positive experience with this airline, I certainly recommend this airline to try out at least for the economy class experience. As for the business class products, I have only flown with the airline's retired A380 and I do understand that the 777-300ER has the same product and you can check out more on that product in my trip report of this airline's A380 over here. For the newer business class product, you can check out other reviewers.
For my previous trip report (Scoot's ERJ-190-E2 SIN-HDY), click here.
Stay tuned for my next trip report: Flying Singapore Airlines' business class on the airline's 787-10 Dreamliner from BKK to SIN.
Thanks for reading and have a good one!
Charles
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