moondog

I happen to prefer remote stands to jet bridges (on arrival only) at airports in which the buses drop off close to immigration or baggage claim. In some cases, this saves a considerable amount of walking.

My SOP for remote stands on departure is to take the very last bus because I'd much rather wait in an air conditioned terminal than on a plane on the tarmac that probably doesn't have a power hook up.

CaliforniaSteve

chris63

brunos

I used to fly TG quite frequently in J HKG-BKK or even HKG-BKK-Europe. I travel with fairly heavy HBO and am not so young. After several bus arrival, I abandoned TG for (more expensive CX). Walking down the stairs in the heat with heavy hand luggage, then waiting in bus, long drive,is too unpleasant.

chris63

Kacee

Sounds just like my last TG BKK arrival. The extra long drive so the bus can turn around is just a bonus!

Wish EK had more dailies on this route

moondog

why not check your bag? I've never experienced any theft or long waits when flying TG? The other benefit to checking your bag is that you can board whenever you please without thinking about bin space. I certainly don't want to sit inside the metal tube any longer than necessary on hot days

Thai-Kiwi

I have 4 TG sectors over 4 days later this week, all in Y. I’ll pay attention to the the gates etc and report back my experiences.

paolo64

brunos

As mentioned I am not young and travel for business and leisure extensively, mostly J or F. I have had my share of 'delayed' bags that did not show up at carrousel. It is not often, but the penalty is huge. I just went to Bali and we landed after big Garuda and Qatar planes. My wife insisted on checking a bag. We took 2 min to go through DPS immigration (being old help), but waited 1h15 for bags to start being delivered. Admittedly, this is not TG but illustrate the benefit of HBO. Not so long ago we flew TG in paid F to CDG. A very-top TG executive was on the plane and we became friendly. The F bags were delivered last, well over an hour after we landed. The TG station manager explained to the top executive that CDG handlers were requesting a "bonus" that TG was not willing to pay, therefore...

These are anecdotes, but we you add 30 years of extensive travel, I will never take the risk if it can be avoided. Plus you gain significant amount of time by avoiding the check-in desks and the carrousels wait.

Anyway, it is sad that TG has gone downhill so much. Ten years ago, it was the preferred way to fly to Europe from HKG for me and my staff. Good value in F decent product at a cost below CX J. Nowadays, it is so inconsistent that it deterred premium transit pax and F primarily .caters to *A awards and some TVIP. Today I can fly QR superb J at a price comparable to TG and avoid the silly hassle of BKK transfer. On all European and Asian airlines, transfer business pax represent a large percentage of longhaul business cabins., TG has lost that traffic.

I am free to vote with my feet, so this is not a rant but a factual observation. I am sad that TG has gone down with silly policies including pricing and yield management.

PS to Paolo64:: Their "business" bus is simply the "first" bus. First no as "First class", but as "First to leave". But they wait until it is filled, with Y pax, to depart. In my last trip, I had to stand up as the very few seats were already taken and it was a long and painful wait and ride.

timangus11

I am also very frustrated with the frequent bus gates with Thai for arrivals and even departures (often with flight delays due to slow boarding). I will now avoid flying Thai long haul to Europe via Bangkok just to avoid this hassle. On my last trip, the bus air conditioning was defective so everyone was sweating in the heat. As mentioned above, another irritation is no special treatment for J/F class except first to board bus-Thai will lose more premium passengers!

andyptrav

I recently waited 45 minutes for my bag at LHR after the first bags arrived. Priority bags came out dead last and this is my third such occurrence in about one year. On the return journey to HKT ditto. One pays £3,300 for this!

moondog

The topic of this tread is not LHR or HKT, but rather BKK.

chris63

maerim

While I do not necessarily like bus gates on departure in my experience it often if not always means that time from aircarft starting to move to take off is shorter by several minutes than if from gate. On arrival it can be much more convenient than a long walk carrying baggage along travelators which can be packed with people. From getting off the bus to clearing immigration is typically only 2-3 minutes for me.

Provided that there is a dedicated bus for BC and FC passengers, which has happened for me sometimes in recent months, then I don't have a big issue with bus gates.

Think about the positives and not just the negatives.