Flyguy1971

Hi guys

Do you know if Thai flies the recently retrofitted aircraft for the business class cabin for flights to Stockholm? Am on a premium economy (U) ticket and have been assigned upperdeck seats. What sort of service differentiation from regular economy can I expect on a U-class ticket. Am I wishfully thinking that i'll get the newer planes or is it more likely to be an old aircraft with rickety seats?

Bests,
FG

Thai-Kiwi

Thai's flights to Scandanavia (ARN and CPH) use the older version of the 747-400, and sell seats to this (presumably) price sensitive market as follows:

Economy Class - older 747-400 economy seat (hundreds of 'em)
Premium Economy - older 747-400 business class seat (50 of them)
Business Class - older 747-400 first class seat (14 of them)

See pictures here: http://www.thaiairways.co.th/eng/TG/...00.php?mid=744

Discussed a bit, so try a search for more information.

dfs24

Well, in U class, you get better pitch, wider seats, and of course PTV with something like 6 channels. Economy class has got no PTV. The rest is the same. You might enjoy a more private cabin on the 744 upper deck. That's about it.

Flyguy1971

Thanks all. Just as I thought. Cant expect new cabins for relatively cheap tickets. I have upperdeck seats with a semblance of business class ambience. And am ok with that. Cheers

BHIL

The food service will also be much better than in economy. U-class BKK-LAX/JFK and U-class BKK-CPH/ARN are not the same. Service to Scandinavia is much better but it also comes at a higher price. It has been discussed before but on the BKK-ARN/CPH-routes TG has more or less maintained the C-class food and service in U-class which make it very good value for money.

Enjoy your trip.

Cheers,

dfs24

Interesting U class TG has on BKK-ARN/CPH. TG website stated that it was just more space.

brunos

Basically, U is a good deal from Scandinavia. You normally get the non-retrofitted planes, so that you sit in the "old" business class seats. They are not up to the lie-flat standards, but much better pitch and recline than the new U seats on TG or any other airline. The seat pitch is 50" with personal TV (not AVOD).

bjerregaard

Very interesting, I am flying CPH-BKK in the end of October and returning in the middle of November. I am in Q-class and payed 7400 DKK. Today I called the TA and asked how much a premium economy would cost. Over 13000 DKK. How much did you pay? He suggested me to wait untill my ticket have been issued and then call THAI Denmark directly. Maybe they could give me a better deal then. Do they really sell 50 seats in Premium every day for that price? I doubt! It will be 100 seats every day from Scandinavia.
Some passangers must be upgraded, even if I doubt being *S will help

vivamuci

TG does not upgrade to U if Y is not overbooked.

bjerregaard

Yes offcourse, but Y might be overbooked in the high season?. I was just wondering if TG can sell all this U tickets out of CPH and ARN and how the load factor is in U. 700 seats for sale every week.

SK AAR

End Oct/mid Nov is not high/peak season to Thailand; merely "shoulder season". High season is Dec-Feb and in particular Christmas. I do not know the load factor in U class (Premium Eco) but TG U class is very good value and seems to be popular. It would not surprise me if Premium Eco is often sold out to/from CPH/ARN

Don't rely on op-upgrade on TG. According to several threads in this Forum, TG does not overbook the Eco class much and op-grades are rare. Paid upgrade to Premium Eco is USD 650 o/w which in my opinion is not a good deal. DKK 13.000 in U class is OK.

Magnus

The price from ARN have been around 12500 SEK.

Flew mid June and like 80% full in PE but when i went home end June we were a total of 8 people in upper deck and none downstairs.Business(old F) was totally sold out.

Btw, the flight home was bad.Service, food.And they showed some murdercase-movie on the little tv-screen, only one problem... it was at least 2 parts and they only showed part 1... twice....

One more thing,there was lots of mosquitos in the cabin upstairs.Maybe because the aircraft wasn't parked at a gate?

BHIL

The U-class from Scandinavia has been discovered by many companay travel departments as it is almost impossible to get C-class seats with short notice due to high demand for premium travel and a limited number of seats in the old F-section. Compared to SK who also fly the route from CPH and later this year also from ARN the TG premium economy product is IMO superior to SK eco-extra in all aspects including the price (ok, IFE might be better in SK as it is now AVOD).

According to TG announcements changing from F-C-Y to a C-PE-Y configuration on the Scandinavian routes has increased the yields. Before F was almost empty and C had decent loads (50%). Now C is almost sold out and PE has very good loads (70-80%). Selling more seats to a lower average price apparently makes good business.

During the *A meeting in CPH this year TG vice president Wallop Bhukkanasut revealed that TG is considering increasing/double the number of flights to CPH as they are unable to meet the high demand for travel. According to the him the CPH route is the second most important TG route to Europe. TG does not have any available a/c's at the moment but a short term solution would be to extend the ATH-route to CPH as the load factor to ATH is only around 50%. For more details (sorry, only in Danish):

http://www.standby.dk/4435.0.html?&tx_standbynews_pi1[showUid]=23615&cHash=412d93d66f

Cheers,

dfs24

Its not strange that C class is often sold out. With just 14 seats, what do you expect. Another thing they could do is to install more of the old F seats on the main deck, but it will not happen.

BHIL

I did not expect anything. I am just passing on information and facts and explaining the background for this special arrangement to CPH and ARN.

Unless TG decides to copy this PE product to other routes I agree that it is highly unlikely that the number of seats in old F will be changed. But as a C-class pax demanding flexiblity it is unsatisfying not to be able to get a confirmed seat unless you book 1 week in advance.

I my company we now use PE when travelling on TG between Scandinavia and BKK as we can no longer be sure to get C tickets with short notice. Luckily TG seats Scandinavian PE passengers in J on connecting flights from BKK which makes it acceptable.