THAI ceasing First Class
 

“Thai Airways is the latest airline to axe first class in favour of a vastly upgraded business class experience, with enhanced ‘business plus' suites taking pride of place at Row 1.

Despite a long history of indulgent first class flying, which arguably peaked on the iconic Boeing 747 (the A380 was less impressive), CEO Chai Eamsiri has confirmed the Star Alliance member is removing first class from its fleet.”

https://www.executivetraveller.com/n...ai-first-class

This was actually announced by Khun Chai some time last year already, so it is not exactly the news that site is trying to make it. I think we actually discussed it on here at the time, if my memory serves me right.

I personally am not a fan of the "Business Suites" concept, to be perfectly honest - so it is quite sad to see this go. I do however, recognise that it makes little sense to keey a whole F product going for the sake of three planes.

Their first class hard product was not great but the food was superior and the service excellent. I am sad to see it go as I travel often from LHR to BKK and TG has or had the only first class service. TG's business class is among the worst.

I’d thought so too, and made a search but could see a specific thread - so discussion was probably in the ‘News’ thread. Consequently I thought a discrete thread might be useful :)

On ‘business suites’, AirNZ has just tried this with their 787 refurbishment. Row 1 simply has a bit more room, but the service (at this stage) remains the same as others in the biz cabin.

indeed this is not new at all...
I also diagree that 747 F was superior to A380 F; I really liked the A380 F suite with the large lavatory, which they also flew to CDG and FRA...

I am inclined to agree - whilst the 747 was very much a novelty, and 1A/K very hard to beat, the A380 was more spacious (and of course more modern). But for novelty's sake, I would probably still go with the 747 (good job me, for contradicting myself here :D )

The F check-in followed by buggy ride through the J lounge was one of the iconic airline experiences. I'm glad I was able to experience it a number of times and am sorry to see the end of an era.

I suspect the lack of profitability had a lot to do with how F seats were routinely allocated to certain VVIP, often resulting in booting all other pax from the cabin. Probably easiest to stop that bleeding by just cutting the service.

i believe the CEO originally suggested that the F product would be phased out by 2027, I don't know if that has been brought forward, if so, I missed the announcement.


I have flown THAI , in F , on the London route many times over the years incl a few times during 2025, and indeed, will be doing so again this week. I have another round trip booked (and paid for) for during April so I hope F is still available by then!

While I can understand the medium term business case, I find the timing of the phasing out slightly odd because;

1) As Speedbird001 notes above, the TG business product is currently a long way behind the competition, especially the hard product. I would have thought that they need to demonstrate a much improved J product before shutting down their F class. Absent this, they will certainly loose a number of their regular premium customers. From my experience, I think its a bit of a myth that the only customers who use THAI F are VIPs on a freebie.

2) On the flights I have had over the last year or so its been my impression that they have invested in , and improved , their F. Unlike others I am a fan of their F seat and find it more comfortable than , say Emirates, while lacking the gimmicks. I believe the food offer has improved significantly and the cabin service , which was always excellent, seems to be even better. They have also sharpened up the ground service, for F passengers, at LHR for both arrivals and departures. And, of course, for departures from LHR you still have access to the wonderful (recently refurbished) SIA (First Class) lounge.

I wonder if they are already pulling F from the NRT route? - was searching on Google Flights, and it comes up with F on the 676/677 rotation, but when I go to the TG website for the same dates, it shows only C :(