I recently attended a long time best friend's wedding in the U.K. As I'm currently based in Singapore, I researched options and found a good fare on TG departing KUL - BKK - LHR return for $3,200. This included BKK - LHR on their new A350 aircraft. The return flight was on A380.
For this TR, I will focus on the A350 only as the A380 has been covered many times before.
The trip started with a night at KLIA. There's a pretty decent transit hotel called Sama Sama Express which is very conveniently located next to the departure gate I was headed for in the morning to get to Bangkok. I love staying here for overnight layovers when in KUL and really beats the hassle of catching the KLIA express into town and then returning the following day. I've attached a shot taken from my room which overlooks the gate I arrived at!
The next day at around 6am I headed off to Bangkok on Thai Smile which is a subsidiary of Thai Airways and spent a couple of hours in the TG Lounge waiting for the A350 service to London.
Once aboard I managed to take a couple of shots of passengers settling in. The business cabin was split into two cabins. I took 17A in the front cabin. Both cabins were almost full.
As usual, the staff were warm and friendly. I love the service on Thai Airways and the staff are a credit to the airline.
The configuration is 1 2 1 and if you want the seat next to the window, select the odd number seat. This seat gives you a little more privacy. Overall I found the seating to be ok but it did feel a bit cramped, especially when getting in and out of the seat. My flight was mostly a day flight but I managed to get a few hours sleep on board. Not the best sleep I've had on an aircraft, that's always been Singapore Airlines for me, but satisfactory nevertheless. I thought the Thai Airways hard product was good, not excellent.
Typically on Thai, I find the food service is a bit hit or miss. For this flight, the food was excellent. Here are the food shots. I apologise in advance as I accidentally took these shots after eating partially as the food looked so good! One other quirk (and in a positive way) is the food tray/table mechanism. I love how you can swivel the table in a forward motion so if you need to leave the seat during the food service, getting out is very easy. Here is the first food service on board the A350.
That partially eaten main course by the way is the salmon. You can tell I enjoyed it because half way through I dawned on me that I had not taken any pics. Also, the Verve may have contributed to this oversight.
Since I can only upload 10 pictures (not sure if this is just me or the limit imposed by the site), here is the final shot for this report: The desert tray.
I love it when the cart is served to all and you get a choice rather than it being delivered on a single tray direct to your table. I had most of what you can see here:
You can see the mood lighting was in full swing by this time!
During the flight, the team gave out complimentary wifi access cards with 5Mb each. Frankly I didn't see the point of this since the allowance was more or less consumed by the time my device was fully connected. I'm not one for needing internet connection during a flight anyway as I believe the whole point of the experience is to enjoy the service and not be distracted by what's happening on the ground.
The trip is 11.5 hours and the time passed very quickly. The sleep on the way meant that when I arrived at Heathrow at around 8pm, I was very quickly able to adapt to the time zone difference.
In comparison to the A380 flight back to Bangkok, the trip definitely felt like a "newer" generation offering. The seats have received a small upgrade in the way of smart wood paneling, better electronics, and a slightly wider ottoman (although this last point might be my perception as I haven't actually measured this).
I found the experience well worth the money and I would do it again. As a bonus it's a huge benefit for me to be able to accrue Krisflyer points on an star alliance flight and this return journey meant my gold status for the new year was secured.
For this TR, I will focus on the A350 only as the A380 has been covered many times before.
The trip started with a night at KLIA. There's a pretty decent transit hotel called Sama Sama Express which is very conveniently located next to the departure gate I was headed for in the morning to get to Bangkok. I love staying here for overnight layovers when in KUL and really beats the hassle of catching the KLIA express into town and then returning the following day. I've attached a shot taken from my room which overlooks the gate I arrived at!
The next day at around 6am I headed off to Bangkok on Thai Smile which is a subsidiary of Thai Airways and spent a couple of hours in the TG Lounge waiting for the A350 service to London.
Once aboard I managed to take a couple of shots of passengers settling in. The business cabin was split into two cabins. I took 17A in the front cabin. Both cabins were almost full.
As usual, the staff were warm and friendly. I love the service on Thai Airways and the staff are a credit to the airline.
The configuration is 1 2 1 and if you want the seat next to the window, select the odd number seat. This seat gives you a little more privacy. Overall I found the seating to be ok but it did feel a bit cramped, especially when getting in and out of the seat. My flight was mostly a day flight but I managed to get a few hours sleep on board. Not the best sleep I've had on an aircraft, that's always been Singapore Airlines for me, but satisfactory nevertheless. I thought the Thai Airways hard product was good, not excellent.
Typically on Thai, I find the food service is a bit hit or miss. For this flight, the food was excellent. Here are the food shots. I apologise in advance as I accidentally took these shots after eating partially as the food looked so good! One other quirk (and in a positive way) is the food tray/table mechanism. I love how you can swivel the table in a forward motion so if you need to leave the seat during the food service, getting out is very easy. Here is the first food service on board the A350.
That partially eaten main course by the way is the salmon. You can tell I enjoyed it because half way through I dawned on me that I had not taken any pics. Also, the Verve may have contributed to this oversight.
Since I can only upload 10 pictures (not sure if this is just me or the limit imposed by the site), here is the final shot for this report: The desert tray.
I love it when the cart is served to all and you get a choice rather than it being delivered on a single tray direct to your table. I had most of what you can see here:
You can see the mood lighting was in full swing by this time!
During the flight, the team gave out complimentary wifi access cards with 5Mb each. Frankly I didn't see the point of this since the allowance was more or less consumed by the time my device was fully connected. I'm not one for needing internet connection during a flight anyway as I believe the whole point of the experience is to enjoy the service and not be distracted by what's happening on the ground.
The trip is 11.5 hours and the time passed very quickly. The sleep on the way meant that when I arrived at Heathrow at around 8pm, I was very quickly able to adapt to the time zone difference.
In comparison to the A380 flight back to Bangkok, the trip definitely felt like a "newer" generation offering. The seats have received a small upgrade in the way of smart wood paneling, better electronics, and a slightly wider ottoman (although this last point might be my perception as I haven't actually measured this).
I found the experience well worth the money and I would do it again. As a bonus it's a huge benefit for me to be able to accrue Krisflyer points on an star alliance flight and this return journey meant my gold status for the new year was secured.
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