All airlines have had a tough time during COVID,
but the decline of NOK Air is one of the sharpest that I’ve seen.
Hi there, my name is Kevin. This channel came from a love of traveling,
a love of the full process and the journey itself. I feature airline trip reports and
high end hotel reviews from all over the world. My reviews aren’t sponsored by airlines or hotels so
you can be sure to get my unbiased opinion. Am I an expert? You can decide. Am I fair? Yea, I am.
Let’s get into it, welcome to Ho Chi Minh City’s International Airport.
It’s late morning thanks to a very pleasant departure time and today I’m heading to Bangkok.
If you’d like to know the exact fare that I paid for my flight or my next 5 videos in queue,
there are some incredible flights coming- please check out the description below.
Check in was a breeze considering our flight today was less than half full.
The Saigon to Bangkok route is one of the more competitive ones in the region with 18 or more
daily flights on nine different carriers. Seven carriers fly to Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport
and the other two, to the older Don Meaung, where we are headed today.
After a quick immigration and security check I made my way
up to the Le Saigonnaise Lounge which has become my favorite plane spotting perch.
At this time of day it’s a bit of an odd mix of hot food on offer,
but that’s not why we’re here. If you want to see a longer tour of this lounge,
check out any of my other videos departing from Saigon.
I know you already know it, but just a friendly reminder that this video was not
sponsored by or provided by NOK Air- as with all of my videos this one was self funded so
I can give you my unbiased opinion- so your view, thumbs up and subscription
are greatly appreciated and ensure more content just like this will keep flowing.
Our carrier today is NOK Air. NOK is the Thai word for bird,
which will also explain their fun and colorful livery when you catch it pulling into the gate.
Founded as SkyAsia in
2004, they were later rebranded and for quite some time THAI Airways held a 39% stake in them,
which has lowered over time to 16% since they weren’t playing nice with each other.
Despite NOK’s small scale, they do currently have the largest number
of domestic Thai routes of any airline, though their international network has
always been very small with just four international destinations.
In 2013, NOK began another side venture in coordination with Singapore Airline’s
Scoot and formed NokScoot which was a low cost medium to long haul airline,
very similar to Scoot’s longer routes or AirAsia X. NokScoot shut down in 2020 though due to COVID.
They currently fly to 26 destinations on their 17 narrow body aircraft and
have a further 7 on order. Heading to the gate I got my
first good look of of our 45, I’m sorry, 15 year old 737-800 in a tropical green livery.
Boarding began on time and it almost looked as if she was shy and trying to hide from the camera.
Let’s take a look at today’s flight stats. We’d push back a whopping 14
minutes early and cruise at 36000 feet for this 67 minute flight which ended up
at the arrival gate bang on time due to us sitting on the tarmac for 20 minutes.
Stepping on board was a bit of a time warp. Arrival at Don Meaung airport can
be chaotic at times, so I paid extra for a “premium” seat in the front of the cabin,
selecting 2A at the time of booking. Premium was certainly a stretch of the world though. Fact
of the matter is, it’s been quite a while since I’ve seen seats looking this rough.
737
seats in general are narrower than on an A320,
so that combined with the tight legroom and the suck it in if you weight more than 120 pounds
seatbelt led to feeling like I was being shrink wrapped and prepared for shipment.
Due to the curvature of the aircraft, the seats in row 1 were even narrower with B and C seats
even narrower than that since the tray table being in the armrest reduced width further.
If I sat in that middle seat I’d likely need to be pried out of it upon landing.
At least though there were overhead airvents.
As for the seats themselves,
they have seen better days and those better days were likely 10 years ago.
As we push back and taxi to the runway, let me mention that I have flown NOK a couple
times before back in the Visa run days and I have nothing but pleasant memories about them- so the
state of the onboard product did come as a surprise today.
The spool up,
take off and airport stats are coming up now.
Geography was my favorite subject as a kid- I’m still pretty obsessed with maps,
but I’m caught off guard by needing to fly northwest to
Bangkok from Saigon. My mind’s eye has always had Bangkok much further south.
While there is merch available to buy, I was expecting a snack service which is what they used
to do. I remember they had a cute little branded box, with a branded bottle of water and a snack
of some sort inside- similar to Bangkok Airways if you’ve seen my flights on them before. Today
though, I just had two choices. Water or nothing. The bathrooms were clean and standard- the soap
just being in the sink since we were landing soon- but actually getting to the bathroom
was a challenge since the seat recline really does make you commit to where you’re sitting.
Regardless of how uncomfortable the seat is though, can’t really complain
when you’re descending 40 minutes after you took off.
We’d be flying over the city before looping around and landing at DMK from the north.
We had a quick taxi but then a 20 minute hold waiting for our gate to open up.
No matter that angle you try, this bird just doesn’t want to be photographed.
Immigration was exceptionally quick and the bags came out a few minutes
later. Let’s head into the Flip Flop Score.
I realize this was a very short flight and so of course any old seats or discomfort is fully
tolerable- but I look at it through the lens of their competition. There are two full service
carriers- Vietnam Airlines and Thai Airways- who fly between the cities as well as quite a few
respectable low cost carriers and they all charge around the same price, let’s say $60-$100 one way-
so I just don’t see a reason to subject yourself to such crappy interiors when
you could easily be very comfortable on another airline for the same price.
That said, I do hope you enjoyed this video and will join me for a
very special video next time as I fly Oman Air business class from Bangkok to Muscat.