THAI Airways TG517/518 BKK-DXB
May 21, 2014
THAI's A330 aircraft at gate C2
I flew Economy Class on both TG517 and TG518 with the Q booking class, which cost me about US$750. The flight time was about six hours on both ways, flying over Mumbai and 10 miles north of Muscat. Dinner was somewhat simple as it was probably THAI’s mid-haul flight. Both flights were light but the return flight was extremely light with about 50-60 passengers in total.
Flying to Dubai is most popular if you fly Emirates, the leading middle-east airlines. In fact, I was originally interested in flying with Emirates by using up my American Express points to covert into its Award flights. However, I just stay with a Star Alliance partner airline to enjoy lounge accesses at BKK and DXB.
Flying to Dubai is most popular if you fly Emirates, the leading middle-east airlines. In fact, I was originally interested in flying with Emirates by using up my American Express points to covert into its Award flights. However, I just stay with a Star Alliance partner airline to enjoy lounge accesses at BKK and DXB.
THAI Royal Silk Concourse C lounge
The TG lounge in Suvarnabhumi Concourse D is probably the best because it wide-spreads across the half of the Concourse D on the 3rd floor. During the afternoon time, this lounge is relatively quiet as most passengers fly in the earlier morning and in the night. While I wanted to take a brief shower before the flight, I went to the TG lounge in Concourse C (there are two TG lounges in Concourse C but just they are located face to face on the hallway).
If you just want to use a shower room, just ask the staff nearby to get towels. Compared to the shower rooms in ANA Arrival lounge at Tokyo Narita Airport, the service is very limited. It is a simple shower room with a toilet. Shampoo and body soap are provided in the shower room while there is no toothbrush and toothpaste, etc. You may need to bring your own amenities should you need to use this facility.
On the flight to Dubai, again it was very light, especially on the return flight. THAI utilizes A330-300 plane, so the Economy cabin is a 2-4-2 abreast while a 2-2-2 abreast in Royal Silk Business cabin. When I looked back, no one was sitting at least next 15 rows in a rear, so I decided to take the four seats in the middle section to take a good nap. Four seats together were already 6-foot long, making me comfortable to sleep throughout the flight. I took a seafood meal on the way back to Bangkok, but the taste was intermediate. It was unusual for me to taste like this but it was just probably the mid-haul flight so that the meal was not much focused on this route.
If you just want to use a shower room, just ask the staff nearby to get towels. Compared to the shower rooms in ANA Arrival lounge at Tokyo Narita Airport, the service is very limited. It is a simple shower room with a toilet. Shampoo and body soap are provided in the shower room while there is no toothbrush and toothpaste, etc. You may need to bring your own amenities should you need to use this facility.
On the flight to Dubai, again it was very light, especially on the return flight. THAI utilizes A330-300 plane, so the Economy cabin is a 2-4-2 abreast while a 2-2-2 abreast in Royal Silk Business cabin. When I looked back, no one was sitting at least next 15 rows in a rear, so I decided to take the four seats in the middle section to take a good nap. Four seats together were already 6-foot long, making me comfortable to sleep throughout the flight. I took a seafood meal on the way back to Bangkok, but the taste was intermediate. It was unusual for me to taste like this but it was just probably the mid-haul flight so that the meal was not much focused on this route.
Overall not bad, but my concern is if this THAI route continues its business into the future or not. My neighbor passenger was a TG frequent flyer and he told me about this route business. Or I would like to conclude that connecting tourism-oriented countries, like Bangkok and Dubai, is not a good outcome for airline businesses. By the way, I saw only one passenger in the business class on TG518 and he was my neighbor passenger’s boss.
