Thunderroad

My wife and I plan to fly these two itineraries on Bangkok Air early next year. I hope that the current immigration delays at BKK are resolved by then, but want to ask just in case:

1. We'd fly from Phnom to Luang Prabang, arriving in BKK at 8:15 a.m. and departing at 9:30 a.m. Am I correct in assuming that we wouldn't even have to deal with Thailand immigration, but would simply transit through? And regardless, is the 75 minutes enough for the transit? If not, our alternative would be to fly the previous evening from PNH and overnight in BKK.
2. We'd later fly from Luang Prabang to Koh Samui, arriving BKK at 2:15 p.m. and leaving as soon as 3:40 p.m. Am I correct in assuming that we'd need to do immigration in BKK, or would it be in Samui? And is 85 minutes too tight a connection, or would we be better off booking a later one? (The last Bangkok Air flight to Samui leaves at 6:45 p.m.)

If anyone has any other advice on flying these routes, I'd welcome that as well.

Thanks!

TPJ

1. Only transit security - at this time of the day it will most likely take no more than 5-15 minutes.

2. Passport control in BKK, customs clearance in USM.

In both cases you will most likely have enough time for a short visit to PG lounge, that is available to all customers (soft drinks, Internet access, small snacks).

Goldorak

As long as your connection is "legal" (and it seems to be the casa), you don't have to worry because PG is very good assisting transit pax and accelerating things if you are too tight. An agent will wait for you in the jetway at BKK in case of problem.

Thunderroad

This is great info. Thank you both!

dsquared37

If the current flights times hold you'll be fine.

The big question is what the schedule will evolve into as you're planning for early next year. Many things can change over that time.

Thunderroad

Things change in Thailand??? Or with airline schedules???

Goldorak

you might be interested by reading this thread I started last year :
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/other...y-feb-9-a.html

Thunderroad

Very good to know, Golderak. I'll take this into account in making my own booking.

dsquared37

Your situation is not relevant to the OP. You were connecting to a domestic airport without customs facilities and therefor needed to go through immigration and customs in BKK.

OP is travel int-int and subsequently int-dom where the domestic airport has customs.

In your case the problem was based upon the website not differentiating airports with/without customs. In the latter situation you'd need additional cushioning for the connection and that's something you didn't have.

Goldorak

I know my situation was different from the one of the OP but I wanted to show him how good PG can be to handle transfers in BKK if things get "tight" or complicated.

dsquared37

Fair enough.

In all my travels on PG I've never had the situation where they grabbed me for expediting anything. That's probably a good thing.