TG BKK to LAX
 

I had just completed two days of meetings in BKK and was really ready to head home. After flying TG within Asia many times, I was looking forward to taking Thai on longer flights. How wrong could I have been?

I was booked on TG 774 a 747-400 in business class. I assume this must have been model #1. The flight was scheduled to depart at 7:35AM and was told I had to be at the airport three hourse before departure. But, since the airport dosen't open till 5:00am, I arrived at 5:30. This was plenty of time. They were searching and x-raying all luggage that was to be checked. I had carrying on and didn't have to get x-rayed, but did. There was no line at the Royal Orchard business class check-in. My passport was checked and boarding pass issued in about 15-minutes by a pleasant staff member. I was given a pass to the Thai business class lounge. I paid the depature tax, cleared immigration and was off to duty free land.

The fligh departed from gate 14, which is near the Thai Business Class lounge, where I hung out for a while watching CNN. It was almost empty, maybe three other people.

Near gate 14 I had my bags x-rayed and then was off to the gate. At the date there was another passport check and a check of your boarding pass.

Boarding started at 7:00am with the transit passangers (several coming in from DEL) and then the regular boarding. I was seated in 12B (upstairs). I was asked to keep my luggage downstairs, since the normal luggage area behind the stairs has been made into a crew bunk. Nice for them, bad for passangers.

While I had traveled business on Thai before this was the first time upstairs and it was tight. It was alot like the F/C of the UA Shuttle. There are 40-seats in the hump and that is about 10 too many. The seats are older, no foldabe wings, no inseat videos and no foot rests. Well, there is one, but it folds down from the seat in-front and is pretty poor. There were two settings, on the floor or fully-up.

Boarding was quick, with a passing of drinks and departure was on the dot at 7:35am. (This was helped by a light load).

Breakfast was served and we settled back for the 6-hour flight to Osaka. There, we deplaned and were taken into a holding area. The stop was scheduled for 1-hour (gas and food). It took nearly 2 hours.

There were Japanese security people running (and I do mean running) on and off the flight. The running on to the flight was what bothered me....

We finally reboarded,only after another set of security checks and body searches. We had another 10:30hrs ahead of us to LAX.

The lack of video equipment (in-seat video), the tight seating and legs rests made the flight to seem as though it would never end.
All we had was the single main cabin video screen.

I awoke about 5 hours into the flight to see the video screen was playing only white noise. I called the attendant and asked if they could put the air-map up. My replay was that "only the senior crew member knows how to work that and she's a sleep". That's always reassuring....

Dinner was offered and then about two hours our of LAX we had a breakfast. None of the TG food or wine was memorable (this isn't SQ). I had to regularly ask for water.

With all the delays, we arrived at LAX at 10:35am and I cleared customs and immigration by 11:00am.

Overall, TG is good within Asia, but take a pass on the trans-Pacific flights.



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UA1K,Plt. AA, M/M DL,
Hilton Diamond, Hyatt Plt, Starwood Plt.

Thanks for the report. Sad to hear nothing has changed since I flew them last year. On the way to BKK we had a problem w/ an engine in KIX and they basically left us stranded in the airport for 12 hours. They did give us 2 bottles of Dom Perignon to consume in the lobby so that helped a little. The seats in Biz. are not as nice as some airlines economy seats. Food was only passable as well. Maybe someday they can return to their former splendor.

I've taken this flight about 10 times in the last year to/from LAX (although in F) and while it isn't at the level of SQ or CX, I kinda like it; it has a certain Thai charm. Had to turn back to NRT once and it was pretty scary. Flew with the daughter of the king another time, and it was pretty cool. Seats need work. If you stick to the Thai food, it's not bad. But flew Intra-Asia and thought it was terrible (bad J on 777 to/from Denpasar). I think one of the benefits is that the F and J fares are lower than other carriers to/from LAX, especially compared to UA, and if you buy ticket in BKK, it's really cheap. Since TG has sleeper seats and better business class seats on European routes, can only assume, since this flight is almost always full, that it's a bargain fare flight and as long as they're filling it, no need to make it better.

[This message has been edited by MEX1K (edited 10-01-2001).]

If you are in J, and it's a light load in J/F, you can try requesting a PTV (8mm) from their stash. Sometimes they distribute without asking.

flew TG return LHR - DPS (Bali) last month and was quite horrified when I boarded. i couldn't believe the pitch (about 45inches) and there was no legrest. i was upstairs and had been assured that the seat next to me to be blocked. (i had shown my *A gold card to TG in LHR) it wasn't and in fact of all the pax travelling alone up there i was the only one to have someone sittting next to me. i went to speak to the purser and when i said i had a gold card he said 'everyone does these days'!!!

anyway i moved downstairs and got a seat on my own. the one good thing about thai is that one can pull the drink tray out to make two seats into one so that i could stretch out and sleep. the food was ok and the service was impeccible as ever.

on the bkk - dps segment we flew on a 777 with 6 abreast 2-4-2 configuration!! the ammenity kits we fairly poor too.

I'm bummed now! Am flying TG #774 (and 775) in biz over Winter break.

UA prices/availability were out of the stratosphere, so I went w/TG.