If you’d rather fly from Suvarnabhumi Airport and you prefer inclusive airfares,
Thai Smile is one of your better options for domestic travel in Thailand.
All of the details of this flight to Phuket, coming up.
Bangkok is served by two airports, Don Mueang to the north and Suvarnabhumi to the east.
If it’s during rush hour, I’ll sometimes take the express train,
but otherwise I rely on Grab which is a 30-40 minute ride without traffic.
This is the time when I was going to tell you that Suvarnabhumi has one of the largest
single terminals in the world- so make sure to take extra time to get to the
gate- but then I checked and the new airport in Istanbul is almost three times the size,
suddenly it feels more manageable. Anyway, the airport is split into seven,
soon to be eight concourses. A and B are generally reserved for domestic service. C,
D, E, F & G for international and supposedly sometime in 2022 the new Satellite concourse will
open. It’s already complete, but obviously there’s not a need for it at the moment.
Most of the entrances and exits to the terminal are blocked off so the
authorities can better manage the flow of people in and out- on this day, Door 2 was available.
The airport has one common checkin hall for all flights domestic and international and luckily
the Thai Smile check in counters were pretty much deserted and the process took two minutes max.
My fare today included 20kg of checked baggage and my carry on, was not weighed or tagged.
You cannot really roam that far without being brought back to reality these days-
and the multiple empty aisles did just that. I’ve gotten multiple questions in my previous videos
about mask usage and if it’s actually enforced on the planes. The short answer is, this is Asia-
many of us wore masks even before COVID and there is no resistance towards the policy here. So,
no there are not many reminders from crew because there are not many people not wearing the mask.
That said, if you’re not wearing it when you should be- yes, crew will politely remind you.
Ten minutes walk after ID check, you’re at this crossroads- this is truly your only
option for food if flying out of concourse A or B so make sure you prepare yourself.
A few steps after you’ll be on your way to security screening. After security,
there is nothing. Truly, nothing- unless you consider a single vending machine exciting. That
said, I have a love hate relationship with this airport. It’s in my category of ugly beautiful.
Considering how beautiful and colorful the country this terminal represents is- the design here
still confuses me a bit.
Just about an hour before the flight was scheduled to depart, the waiting area was still pretty much
empty- that soon changed though. While waiting I had a reminder of just how scrappy of an airline
Thai Vietjet is. This is by the way only from my observation on this day at this time,
but Thai Vietjet seemed to have more active planes in use
than Thai Airways or Bangkok Airways- a strange sight, especially when you live in Vietnam.
Our aircraft arrived at the gate just before some views of the beautiful Thai 747s
which I hope I’ll have the chance to board one last time before they’re all retired.
Boarding was quick and drama free and soon I was in my seat,
55C. Keep in mind, Thai Smile is one of those airlines that keeps consistent row numbers for
bulkheads and exit rows. I assure you there are not 55 rows on this A320.
The seats are comfortable with a bit more cushion than the barest of bare bones seats.
I’m six foot or one meter 81 and legroom was fine for this short flight.
If I ever had to do it longer, I’d hope the seat next to me was again empty.
Pushback was nineteen minutes late, but that was cut to five minutes by arrival.
As we made our taxi, the cabin crew came through and individually sanitized
every single baggage compartment handle. Not exactly comprehensive but it was a nice touch.
Here you can see the new satellite terminal as well as the Thai Airways parking lot that
it’s apron has been used for- a reminder of how vital it is to reopen borders in southeast Asia.
Today we were lining up for runway 01R, taking off to the north.
Don’t get too excited for the spool up though as this one is likely to put you to sleep.
I almost forgot to talk about the airline. In 2011, Thai Airways decided to create a
subsidiary to compete with the quickly growing low cost airline market. Thai Smile was launched
in 2012 to fill that gap and was supposed to reach an annual profit of five million baht
within 2 years of beginning operation. Let’s just say, things may have not gone to plan. Thai Smile
serves around 30 domestic and international markets and as was announced before COVID,
would be taking over more and more of Thai Airways routes, including to my home airport in Saigon.
We’ve got around 3 minutes of incredibly beautiful
clouds coming up, feel free to skip ahead to the time below for landing.
I’m going to rudely interrupt your cloud enjoyment, just as I was.
I think he wanted to hold hands.
After just a little over an hour in the air, we were on our final approach for Runway 09
which crosses over the spectacular Mai Khao beach-
a look out on par with St. Maarten’s famous runway beach.
Phuket has around 60-80 daily departures these days,
a lot lower from it’s peak of course, but still pretty impressive to see multiple daily flights
from everywhere from Helsinki to Ulan-Ude to Sydney and many of the places in between.
As we disembarked each passenger was handed a teeny tiny bag with a small bottle of water,
a blueberry pastry and a wet wipe.
The arrivals area is nothing to speak of, but it’s organized- though the bags do take quite
a while to turn up. Doesn’t matter though, this is Phuket- you should be on island time already.
And now, for the Flip Flop Score, which I’ve adapted a bit for low cost airlines to give us
a bit more fair of a comparison. Thai Airways’s website has always been one of the better
functioning ones in my opinion at a 9. Checking was friendly and took a matter of seconds, a full
10. Boarding was orderly, boarding groups were used and only three rows at a time disembarked,
a full 10. The seat, for a short flight, is just fine at a seven. The cabin felt fresh
enough and it was as clean as I could imagine it being at an eight and nine respectively.
Service both on the ground and in the air was as expected at an eight. That little pastry
thing was a bit weird, food at a seven. We took off and landed a bit behind schedule, an eight
and finally, my single fare included a carry on, a checked bag and seat selection- full points there.
Overall a solid 86 out of 100 and I’d have no problem flying Thai Smile again.