FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - Connecting to Bangkok Airways flight from BA9 to BKK
Old Mar 14, 2013 | 5:28 am
  #31  
jfs5
10 Countries Visited
20 Countries Visited
30 Countries Visited
15 Years on Site
 
Join Date: Sep 2009
Posts: 184
Originally Posted by corporate-wage-slave
The last question governs the other question. BA do not interline in that direction, unless it is on one ticket (e.g. via a travel agent) or a codeshare. I did see an article here which suggested that BA were going to develop a relationship with Bangkok, but I've not seen evidence of it yet beyond some marketing spiel in the quoted newspaper cutting.

If you are on 2 tickets - one BA, one Bangkok, I reckon you can't interline, so you'd need to clear immigration, collect bags and go through a potentially sticky inbound security in BKK. Not at all assisted by massive long corridors and wierd rules as to where you can move around landside. BKK is - for a modern airport - the complete opposite of T5 in terms of design: horrible. [Don't say that to a Thai, you may get into trouble]. So I'd query the wisdom of this.

On the other hand, if you are hand luggage (or have somehow interlined) you have a relative short cut. No passports and a near empty connection security channel at each end of the airport. So I'd be comfortable with that connection even on 2 PNRs (and travel insurance/flexible tickets).
.
In August 2012, I did exactly the same routing (LHR-BKK-SRP). At checkin at LHR, I had a 45 minute argument with the BA checkin desk who did not want to interline my bags to SRP. I eventually persuaded them to put an interline tag on my bag although they insisted that this was a waste of time because the bag would not be transferred to the PG flight.

Just to be on the safe side, I did go through immigration at BKK and monitored the BA 9 bags as they came out on the conveyor belt.

Guess what, my bag did not come out and as i had expected was transferred to my PG flight without a hitch! So much for no interlining! My guess is that BKK baggage handlers work for more than one airline and don't necessarily follow the complex rules established by the individual airlines with regard to interlining.
jfs5 is offline