I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again, flying from one tropical island to another
can never be a bad thing.
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
honest opinion.
Am I an expert?
You can decide.
Am I fair?
Yea, I am.
Let’s get into it, welcome to Phuket.
If you’d like to know the exact fare that I paid or my next five videos in queue, please
check out the description below.
Today we are at Phuket’s domestic terminal flying on Bangkok Airways from Phuket to Koh
Samui.
Why Bangkok Airways?
Well, they’re the only airline that flies this route.
Actually, they’re the only airline that currently flies to Koh Samui at all- so I’d
say that’s a pretty good reason.
Bangkok Airways, a self described boutique airline is a full service carrier and includes
checked baggage with their economy tickets.
This leads to a very relaxed carry on policy that goes something like this:
Any bags to check?
If I could, I’d like to take this as carry on…
Oh, you want to carry it on?
Yes.
Ok, go ahead.
Easy peasy, time to head to security, which in Phuket is more of a power bank check than
anything else.
Always have them separate and hand them directly to the security staff who will check the capacity.
Once through security, it’s either left or right and the helpful departure board will
point you in the correct direction, which is apparently always, right.
So, Bangkok Airways grants lounge access to all passengers, but their definition of a
lounge is pretty loosy goosey.
Imagine pointing to a section of 30 seats in the terminal, building four walls around
them and offering instant coffee.
That’s essentially what a Bangkok Airways domestic lounge is.
So, instead today we will check out the Coral Lounge which is much nicer and accessible
with Priority Pass.
This airline has an operational history which is certainly unique.
They were founded in 1968 as Sahakol Air, first an air taxi service mostly contracted
by American companies looking for gas and oil in the Gulf of Thailand.
In 1986 it began scheduled service becoming Thailand's first privately owned domestic
airline before rebranding to Bangkok Airways in 1989.
That same year, the airline opened its own airport in Koh Samui.
In 1996, they built a 2nd in Sukhothai Province and a third in 2003 in Trat Province serving
Koh Chang.
Currently the airline has a total of 35 aircraft, a mix of turbo props and narrowbody Airbus-
serving around 30 destinations.
While Sukhothai and Trat currently offer two daily flights per day to Bangkok, Koh Samui’s
airport currently has around 35 daily flights to Bangkok, Krabi, Chiang Mai, Singapore and
of course, Phuket with other destinations expected to resume this year.
Ok, time to board.
For some reason the domestic gates are 1-8 and then 83-84.
83 and 84 are bus gates that Bangkok Airways uses.
So you already know how much I paid for my flight, but do you know how much the airline
paid me to publish this video?
That would be a big fat 0.
Not only was Bangkok Airways unaware I’d be making a video, they have no idea who I
am and that’s how I like it.
Why?
Because content creators are recognized every day, on the street, on a flight, in a hotel
and instantly, the VVIP alarms start ringing in everyone’s ear pieces and suddenly their
experience is no longer typical.
When I’m making a review video, I don’t want special treatment, so I film anonymously.
That is more challenging than you’d think though- so that’s why every like, comment
and subscription really does mean a lot and helps the channel grow to keep this twice
weekly content flowing.
Thanks very much for watching today.
Boarding began just a few minutes behind schedule, but that’s fine as I got to see a few more
airlines.
A Cathay A330, Emirates 777, Thai Smile A320 and El Al 787…
I have reviews coming from three of those four this year.
Our Aircraft today is a 7 year old ATR72, one of 13 in the fleet.
Let’s take a look at today’s flight stats.
We did end up taking off three minutes early and heading up to 15000 feet for our 45 minute
flight over the mainland arriving seven minutes behind schedule.
I guess we were going pretty slow.
As we were boarding I eyed the one and only spot left that would fit my bag and that took
priority over filming the seats, so you’ll get a glimpse of them as we deplane.
For an ATR, it’s fine.
Certainly not something I’d be happy in for more than an hour or two but the 30”
of pitch’ll do for our 45 minute hop.
We pushed back and passed by quite a motley crew of airlines.
Just waiting for this one to come in and now it’s time to get going.
We’d be taking off to the due east.
The spool up, take off and airport stats are coming up next.
Today’s flight would take us to the northeast and the nice thing about staying at 15000
feet is the views are always fantastic.
I was expecting like, a bottle of water service, but was shocked when they started rolling
the carts down the aisle passing out real trays with a mini sandwich and pastry.
Considering how short the flight is, I’d say this is a pretty great offering.
By the time the trays were collected, we were already in our descent and soon in a final
approach pattern.
Considering the vast majority of resorts in Koh Samui are within this frame, it’s amazing
how much of that is owned by the airline.
For those of you looking forward to my Six Senses Samui review, you can see it at the
end of the peninsula in the distance.
And if you weren’t looking forward to that one, you definitely should be.
After landing we made a uey in the middle of the runway and very quickly backtracked
before parking at our stand and deplaning.
Near everything in this airport is open air, including the little buses that will bring
you to the arrivals area.
The airport itself is beautiful and gives me Kailua Kona vibes from like 25 years ago.
And that’s that.
Their seats are certainly not the most comfortable thing and relatively speaking fares to Samui
are generally pretty high, but otherwise, it was a great little flight which I’m sure
I’ll be doing again at some point.
For now, I really do hope you enjoyed this video, if you did, please be sure to click
the thumbs up button and subscribe with notifications on to make sure you don’t miss any of my
Thailand series.
I’ll see you next time from the Napasai, a Belmond Hotel.
Oh, and thanks for watching until the end.