Round The World and other travels

Flight Log: TG917

London Heathrow (LHR) - Bangkok Suvarnabhumi (BKK)

This Thai Airways Royal Silk flight was my last Miles & More redemption to be booked, although not the last to be taken; that was still more than six months away. Today's flight was due to depart from Terminal 2, which ever since it opened in June 2014, has in my opinion been easily the most pleasant at the UK's principal airport. The experience began in T2's United Club, which turned out to be shockingly good for a 'US Big 3' facility. Properly made, complimentary cocktails, anyone?

Boarding was due to start at 2055, and as usual I aimed to be as near to the front of the queue as reasonably possible. I was looking forward to my first intercontinental flight in a business-class cabin featuring the 'staggered' seating configuration. (My only previous experience had been on a short Dubai-Muscat hop with Swiss, as 2010 drew to a close.) This is the seating arrangement where you sit alongside a 'console', under which is a 'cubby hole' for the feet of the person behind. The arrangement is similar to British Airways Club World in that it pairs up the shoulders of one passenger with the feet of another; the big difference is that in the 'staggered' arrangement, everyone faces the front. My torso was alongside the feet of 16J, and my own feet were alongside the torso of 14J. On Thai's implementation of the concept, everyone has direct aisle access: there are no 'throne' seats alternating with 'seat-console-seat'.

On settling in, I quickly felt that I preferred the layout to standard Club World (not necessarily the upper-deck version), but liked it less than the reverse-herringbone layout currently used by Qatar, Cathay Pacific, Finnair, American and others. One nifty feature was that the table could double as a kind of 'privacy shield' (or half-door, with a bit of imagination!) if moved out from its stored position, but left vertical. Pre-departure service consisted of a drinks offering. Menus, headsets, amenity kits, etc had all been in place on boarding, along with a decorative orchid flower positioned on the top surface of each seat's 'console'.

We pushed back from stand a few minutes early, and I couldn't help noticing that my three-point seatbelt felt really quite uncomfortable. Thankfully, the full restraint was only required for taxi, take-off and landing, with the usual lap belt being deemed sufficient at other times. We taxied out through BA territory to the holding point for Runway 09R, taking off at 2152. It very quickly became murky outside, but then it was pitch black anyway. Seat belt signs were switched off routinely, but were back on within ten minutes, a move that heralded a lengthy bout of moderate turbulence.

When things had settled down a bit, bottles of water were delivered and an announcement was made giving a revised ETA of 1545+1. It seemed like an easier ride was expected from this point on. In due course, I received a glass of champagne and a small tray of mixed nuts. The menu for the main meal was as follows:

I had the multifaceted starter and the fish main course, accompanied by a glass of the Pouilly Fumé. I followed this up with the cheese plate, but declined the offer of a dessert. The meal was then rounded off with a caffeine-free camomile tea and a chocolate. Unfortunately the fish proved not to be greatest choice on this occasion, with the extraordinarily vinegary sauce overwhelming everything else on the plate.

I was ready for bed by this time and soon settled myself down, deciding not to go completely flat: I realised that I felt more comfortable with my head slightly raised as the pillow on its own seemed a bit lacking in this respect. I used my table in the upright position, but not stowed, to provide extra privacy. (This only works when seated directly adjacent to a window.)

The cabin crew made a tentative start to the breakfast service with two hours left to run, for those of us who were awake at this time. I hadn't been awake for long, but noticed that we were about to cross from either West Bengal or Bangladesh - I wasn't sure which - into the airspace above the Bay of Bengal. The breakfast tray seemed very full and the main course was very much to my liking: the eggs were nicely cooked and the portion of smoked salmon was generous.

As the flight entered its final stages, I felt able to firm up on some conclusions that had already been forming in my mind. Regarding the hard product, there was no reason to change the view that I reached shortly after boarding: this was a perfectly respectable product, better than 'standard' Club World but not as good as reverse herringbone.

In terms of the soft product, all of the food and drink was good apart from my main course at dinner; perhaps I had just made an unwise selection. But there was another niggle: seated in the middle of the cabin (taking both parts of Business Class together), I noticed several times that the service was a bit haphazard, and I eventually worked out what was going on. I was at the boundary where service from the front met up with service from the back - again, bearing in mind that the latter started in the small 'J' cabin aft of the one I was in. The problem was that none of the flight attendants seemed to be entirely sure of where their run stopped. On at least two occasions - distribution of glasses of water before breakfast and hot towels after breakfast - the service items ran out at Row 14 and nobody finished the job for Row 15. In the case of the final hot towels, I pressed my call button after a few minutes and asked for one, pointing out - nicely - that everyone else had one.

We touched down at Suvarnabhumi at 1548 (Saturday) local time and were on-stand just four minutes later. While not achieving the revised ETA given shortly after departing from London, we were nevertheless comfortably on time judged against the published schedule.

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