Review: Thai Airways A350 Business Class

Have you ever sat on the right side of an A350 before?

Btw, which Thai 787s have angled flat beds?

Huh. As much as I love Thai, I find their food to be one of my least favorite among SE carriers, and while their service in F has been amazing each time, I can’t say the same for C. Not that it was bad, but certainly not exceptional.

However, I’ve only flown them to/from AU/NZ (1xF, 1xC) and intra-Asia (1xF, 3xC), never Europe.

Thai is awesome. Always my favorite. Always perfect (even when they swap your aircraft). Only issue is business class lounges but there are plenty of other options in BKK. As a side note, their food even in coach on short flights is better than business class on US carriers.

I am glad you have given Thai A350 business class service a fairly positive review. I have been flying Thai quite a bit in the past 18 months between SE Asia and Australia.

Thai’s onboard services and catering have improved quite a bit. I won’t hesitate to fly it’s A350 services. The other aircrafts still have older seats and some are angled flat seats, particularly the 777s. They are not as private and comfortable.

I thought the the Thai staggered seats remind me of the United Polaris design except United cramped so many seats into the cabin. SQ’s 787-10 staggered business cabin also share resemblance of the Thai A359 design.

At BKK, I have been skipping the Thai Lounge and use the SQ lounge, which was fairly new and offer better food, drinks and other amenities. EVA’s Lounge is also quite decent. I have also visited the Turkish Lounge as you had reviewed, but I did no think it is up to SQ and EVA’s standard.

Lucky what did you reply when asked if there was anything they could do to improve the service? 🙂

I absolutely LOVE flying Thai. I find the service onboard to be really genuinely nice and not robotic like many of the other asian airlines. I also find their catering top rate. Their lounges are where they are let down although this is not uncommon with asian airlines.

I have been stung more than once with Thai swapping out aircraft though. I flew from Zurich to BKK a few months ago and the rostered 777 (with new seats) was swapped out for a 747. I love the 747 but angle flat seats on a 12-ish hour flight just doesn't cut it anymore no matter how good the food or service.

Hey Ben why air India is allowed to fly to usa and thai airways not its better airlines tgan air India.

@ Miguel -- Thailand has worked on getting back to a Category 1 rating with the FAA. The issue isn't whether or not the airline is allowed to fly to the US, but rather that it's hard to do so profitably. Thailand is mostly a leisure market that's highly price sensitive, and the economics of operating an ultra long haul flight without high yield business demand is challenging. That's not to say they won't do so again in the future, but it'll be tough for them to make money.

@ duck ling -- Indeed, Thai does love to do last minute aircraft swaps, which is frustrating. As far as what I told the cabin manager, I actually just mentioned how phenomenal the service was, and how I was so impressed and I couldn't think of anything they could really do to improve. Go figure you're always asked questions like this when things are actually excellent, while when there's a lot of room for improvement they rarely care.

@ Leo Guam -- While their food certainly isn't the "highest end," I think what impressed me so much was how well executed it was. Thai food generally reheats well, and that's why I thought all the food tasted every bit as good as I'd hope for in a restaurant.

@ Alvin -- Hah, I have, but I usually end up on the left side. And I stand corrected, my mistake. I thought the 787-8 had angled seats, but they do appear to be fully flat. Thanks for the correction.

I flew Thai business on the A380 BKK-NRT a few years ago and the lie-flat seats were much better than the angled seats on the 744 we had on the outbound HND-BKK flight. Service and food were good on both flights but nothing overly special.

One of the best flights my wife and I have taken was on Thai ZRH-BKK in F on an A346.

The crew were simply amazing. So amazing that I almost forgot about the poor transfer/lounge access experience when we were on the ground in ZRH.

I’ve also flown TG in economy and have no complaints although we did take an extremely tired 737 from USM to BKK on that same TYO-BKK itin. For a one hour flight its not bad but the aircraft desperately need a refit.

@Ben:
your point about Thai food reheating well is spot on. Thai food is so rich and tasty; even mediocre Thai food tastes good.

Ben - What is a UBS port? Shouldn't it be USB?

@Ben: excellent review, thank you. This trip is very effective with a lot of useful reviews.
I hope that after all the work and little sleep you headed straight for the Lufthansa lounge at MXP for the best lounge coffee that I have had in a long time.

Used to be gold with Thai and loved flying them, They had a very underrated miles program in Royal Orhcid Plus, I utilised the free upgrade from PER-FRA return and took advantage of some of their 50% off reward bookings they quietly offered gold flyers. That was all great until the ROP program was literally raped and murdered, I go with SQ and Krisflyer now.

" I was in one of these seats (15A), right around the center of the cabin."

I had to re-read that sentence, normally after the seat number is given, the next words are nearly always "at the back of the cabin" or "which is the last row of business class."

Any particular reason?

The issue with TG is their consistency. Having used TG as my only choice in the past, I stopped flying with them, the disappointment on a ZRH-BKK in F was just too much. But I can clearly say that I have had my best flights on TG but also my worst. In that sense, one should not expect consistency with TG and the next flight can be a total disappointment.

@ JDS -- Hah, sharp observation! I had actually selected the last row at the time of booking. Oddly when I went to check-in I was assigned a different seat. At that point I selected the only remaining "true" window on the left side, which was 15A.

@ Alex -- Typo, whoops! Fixed.

I hardly see Thai FAs being proactive and polished. You must be very lucky to get those who are proud of doing their job.

What they could improve? The aircraft roulette. Not the most pleasant experience when your longhaul flight gets downgraded from A350 to 777.

I found it excellent. My trip was on a 787-9 to Taipei, so very short. But the aircraft was modern and comfortable, no idea why they use it on a short hop. Great food, great FA's, great seats (reverse herringbone)

Thai business used to be my preferred way of travelling from Australia to Europe. The service was excellent. I even chose their 747 flights when they still had angled seats in business (while everyone else was moving to flat seats), because their service was so good. Once, I was working on a deadline, which needed to be met, by the time I hit the ground in London. I worked all through the night during the flight, and the staff couldn't have been more attentive. They made sure my glass was full, and regularly checked if I wanted a snack or anything else. Needless to say that the project was completed on time and I had a really enjoyable flight, even though I was a little sleep deprived on arrival.

I also did a leg in First and was the only passenger. As you would expect the service was exceptional.

Soon after that, service and food started going downhill, and prices got higher. Reluctantly I abandoned them. It's good to know they are improving standards. Once they stop running Jumbo's out of Sydney and make their pricing more competitive - I would love to return as a faithful passenger.

Do you normally have a cappuccino right before going to bed? That would keep me from sleeping.

I agree that this is a solid but not outstanding product. But Thai continues to struggle to get people to pay for it : in your case they were virtually giving it away( and good for you and others able to ticket that way).But for ROP members ( and those paying money) they still want to charge a huge premium over the competition. That strategy hasn’t worked and will never work. They aren’t good enough to justify it.
Unfortunately the TG ‘brains trust’ can only come up with : flogging frozen meals, points earned at gas station coffee shops and crowdsourcing ideas for how to get profitable. One would like to see Thai recover but by any objective measure, sadly, that ship has sailed.

This is the aircraft type I was supposed to be on during my HND-BKK route. But of course a last minute aircraft swap which Thai is famous for. Flight was still very good and the food some of the best in the sky. Better than Cathay first class I must say. More flavorful, more caring staff whom are very proactive with refills and service.

I thought you said you do not eat pork...

@ Omer -- Correct, that's the one part of the meal that I didn't eat.

Try their spa in Bangkok airport. It's the best!
When are they gonna stop doing the last minute equipment swap? This is really frustrated.

My husband and I flew Thai business class on their A380 (LHR - BKK) as part of our first international premium cabin trip in December 2015. It remains one of my favorite business class experiences, just under Japan Airlines.

Cappuccino before bed time ? I will have trouble sleeping too...

I dare say TG’s service in business class is better than SQ’s.

Rarely post - but I cannot agree more with your review of TG A350s. I think the J seats on the 747s give TG a bad rep (rightly so).

I take it often between MEL-BKK. One of the most underrated hard/soft products out there - the food has always been sublime, though I rarely care for the random assortment of appetisers to start off.

Thanks for the great review Lucky. Have been toying with the idea of flying TG LHR - BKK - LHR, as well as DXB - BKK - DXB on the A380 and A350 respectively. Going to do so soon.

Great review of the TG A350 product! On the food side of things, I don't think that the heavy menu you experienced is all that appropriate for a middle-of-the- night flight. It would be drool-worthy for a daytime/evening flight however!
As to not getting sleep, a lighter intake of food would help greatly, and as others have already pointed out, you should ditch the coffee, and any other caffeine drinks. Also if the caterers were lazy and used any MSG in the food, as is super common in Asia, this combined with alcohol, would almost guarantee you get no sleep.

Thanks for the great review, Ben! I loved seeing the food pics. It seems like a lovely trip.

Good to see TG back on their game. Their food is second only to SQ because of Book the Cook. The problem is while the SQ's main is usually spectacular the appiess send the overall meal to hell in the proverbial hand cart. Where TG do fall flat is on their legacy aircraft hard product all of which feature the ubiquitous angled lie flats while the 744s are positively jurassic Mind you I am not a big fan of SQ's J hard product which I think is due for a tenth if not sweet 16 birthday celebration.

I just flew on Thai's A350 as well. One thing to note, Thai offers a service similar to Singapore Airlines "Book the Cook". They have about 20 different meals you can choose from.

Thai's Business Class became one of the best in the World now, beating Emirates, being my previous favorite. I fancy a lot their Low Sodium meals and wide choice of fresh fruits. Cannot wait for the next flight to BKK.

Great review however i find it so interesting a lot of the reviews say the same thing,great food excellent service but the lounges need attention !!!!!

What an awesome trip. Start to finish. Impressed.

I would describe Veuve Clicquot as 'solid' - but rather mainstream.... unless a vintage or Grande Dame, but the NV is an entry-level champagne. Some airlines offer better bubbly in business, to my opinion of course as this is subjective.

That looks better/same as Thai FIRST class on its longhaul? Or am I missing something? The better color scheme, similar flat seats, and meals. But for less points, I’d surely book this.

If Thai used the A350 & A380 exclusively in their long haul fleet I would fly them far more often and they would have a great hard product and a fairly top end soft product when the crew get it right which IME they usually do.

That said, if you get the 777, 788 or god forbid the 747 you will have a much poorer experience that will make you question whether you want to fly Thai again any time soon if at all regardless of how reasonable the price may be.

It would surely also make sense to Thai to rationalise their fleet instead of operating such a mixed up fleet. I almost still wait for one of their MD11s to appear - they haven't been gone that long and they didn't even have footrests in business class let alone lie flat.

Sounds like a good experience overall.
I personally love the amount of purple, its their brand and they stick to it.
And the food looked amazing!
Would love to try this product.

I find the lack of storage around the seat to be really disappointing. I don't know why seat designers completely neglect that aspect

I had my first ever Business experience with TG back in January on a 777 with exactly the same product as that A350. I was completely blown away by the service. An overnight flight from Europe to BKK and I couldn’t sleep at all, was way too excited. The spectacular flight attended noticed my excitement and refilled my champagne flute throughout the whole night. I just want to say thanks to you Lucky for posting good points deals which helped my have this experience! Keep up the good work.

Looks like Thai offers a solid Business Class product. Love the look of the Thai livery on the A350!

Recently, I had the good opportunity to fly Thai business from Manila to Bangkok when i was equally impressed by Thai's good service including a real Champagne flute; your MVP review resonates with my recent experience.
Happy and Safe travels

The only long haul destination still served by TG's extremely outdated 2-2-2 configuration and angled sleep position is Sydney. (Brisbane and Melbourne have got the 787 or A350). I flew A380 from FRA to BKK and back earlier this year in Business and everything was spot on. They also had extremely reasonable prices and undercut the other airlines on this route with a special offer by about 1.000€. I still would love to try SQ business though.

I find the service has improved on TG over the past few years. It really depends, as is often the case, on the cabin crew dynamic. I've had some amazing TG business class flights where I didn't need to ask for a thing - and others where the service was completely lacked coherence. Overall, I'd say the service and the food have improved markedly over the past few years. I enjoy flying the similarly configured 777-300 on Thai and will look forward to the A350 on a trip in the New Year.

Thai business class i am flying more than 7 years. They are excellent.
Now a days their food menu detoriated a bit.
They are excellent next to Airindia

They are better business class than Air France.
Swiss air and Lufthansa is my favourite.
But i give thai business class a thumbs up.