Hello from Italy, as I just kicked off the return portion of my review trip to Bangkok! For the next segment of my trip, I flew Thai Airways’ Boeing 787-9 Royal Silk business class on the 11hr30min flight from Bangkok (BKK) to Milan (MXP).
While I flew Thai Airways’ 777 first class last year, my last long haul flight on Thai Airways was pre-pandemic. I must admit, I was absolutely delighted by the experience, and this has to be one of the most underrated business class products out there.
The hard product was nothing special (and Thai Airways has quite some hard product inconsistency in its fleet), but the soft product was exceptional, with warm and attentive service, and incredibly tasty food, plus good drinks. I’d fly Thai Airways again in a heartbeat!
In this post I’d like to share some initial thoughts, and then I’ll have a full review upon returning home.
In this post:
Thai Airways’ 787 business class seats are comfortable
Thai Airways’ Boeing 787-9s are configured with 30 business class seats. The airline has Safran Cirrus seats installed seats on these Dreamliners, which is a reverse herringbone product (note that this is specific to the 787-9, and the 787-8 has a much less competitive product, as it’s in a 2-2-2 layout).
Nowadays I’d describe this product as being competitive but nothing cutting edge, as you don’t have the privacy doors or updated tech that some newer seats have. Still, I found this to be plenty comfortable, and managed to get some proper rest.
I have to say, perhaps the most underrated aspect of this cabin is that there are individual air nozzles at every seat. That makes such a difference in terms of getting some rest, for situations where the cabins is kept warm.
When it comes to getting comfortable, Thai Airways has a nice pillow and blanket, which are plush and well padded.
There’s also a mattress pad, though stupidly, I only saw this in the overhead bin at the end of the flight. Oops!
And yes, Thai Airways really likes purple, eh?!
Thai Airways’ 787 entertainment & Wi-Fi are good enough
Thai Airways’ 787 business class entertainment setup is sufficient, but nothing exciting. For one, the plane is equipped with Panasonic Wi-Fi. Business class passengers get one hour of free Wi-Fi, plus all passengers get free messaging.
If you want to purchase Wi-Fi without data caps, you can purchase a surfing pass for $14.99, or a streaming pass for $39.99. I purchased the former, because I found the price difference to be surprisingly big, and on top of that, I rarely find that “streaming” packages actually live up to what’s promised, at least with Panasonic. So for $15, I thought that was good pricing (of course I’d prefer free, but…).
On top of that, there was a decent selection of movies and TV shows — it was far from the best in the industry, but was sufficient.
And of course there was my favorite feature (assuming there’s no tail camera), the map. 😉
Thai Airways’ catering is phenomenal (caviar!)
My Thai Airways flight to Europe departed late at night and arrived early in the morning, so dinner was served after takeoff. I was deliberate with booking my flight ex-Bangkok and to Europe, since Thai Airways specifically serves caviar in business class on these routes (not that caviar makes a flight great, but for the novelty, I was curious to experience the service).
Service began with a snack mix (nuts and fried fruit), plus an amuse bouche consisting of seared tuna with spicy mango salad, and a grilled zucchini roll filled with goat cheese. I had a glass of champagne to drink, and Thai Airways pours Laurent-Perrier.
The starter was probably the star of the show, and consisted of caviar, poached tiger prawn, grilled scallop, and beef bresaola, with grilled asparagus and carrots. What a beautifully presented dish, and how generous that Thai Airways is one of the only airlines in the world to serve caviar in business class.
If I were to nitpick, I would say that I’m a little confused by Thai Airways’ caviar presentation. Is one supposed to just eat the caviar out of the tin with a big spoon or fork? If you’re going to invest in the caviar, you’d think you’d invest the extra dollar to do a proper presentation with diced onions, egg whites, etc. I’m by no means complaining, as the overall presentation was beautiful, but just a bit unusual.
For the main course, I selected the tiger prawns in red curry with pineapple, with jasmine rice, a Thai turnip omelet, and stir friend eggplant. Yum, yum, yum, yum, yum! Okay, maybe I lied… the main course may have been even better than the starter.
After that there was a cheese course, actually nicely presented (unlike on so many other airlines) with grapes, pecans, dried fruit, and more.
Then for dessert, I had the coconut milk panna cotta with toddy palm and ginkgo nuts. YUM!!!
Perhaps the most creative meal was at breakfast, where so many airlines totally lack innovation. I had the croissant with king crab, scrambled eggs, spinach egg rolls, and creamy spinach.
Thai Airways gets a near perfect score for food, as far as I’m concerned!
Thai Airways’ service is warm and hospitable
I have nothing but good things to say about the service on this flight, which is hardly surprising, given what a hospitable country Thailand is. The crew was warm and friendly, and even throughout the night, they constantly checked on passengers.
Bottom line
Thai Airways’ Boeing 787-9 business class is an excellent experience. The seats are comfortable, but nothing to get excited about. What impressed me most was the food and friendly service.
It’s not only that Thai Airways has caviar in business class, but I found the entire meal service to be stellar, from start to finish. When you add in the friendly service, this really is a great experience that doesn’t get enough credit, as you rarely hear someone raving about how great Thai Airways is.
With Thai Airways soon introducing a new long haul business class product, I think the Star Alliance carrier could offer a true top tier experience, among the best in the world.
What’s your take on Thai Airways’ 787 business class?
Ever tried contacting anyone in Thai airways other than bookings and reservations? Impossible! No email address on their website or phone number besides the booking. Phone number. Travel again in business class? No thanks!
Love the color scheme! And Thai hospitality is legendary.
The absolute strangest bunch of comments I’ve ever seen in a travel review.
Thai Airways is always a delight to fly. A real treat in the past I really really miss was flying business class in their A-380. What a wonderful plane made even better with the exceptional Thai crews. In the day, equal to Singapore Airlines in every respect. Just last month I flew Thai business class from Frankfurt to Bangkok ( connecting to Phuket). Great flight but the triple 7 a little bit needing a refresh...
Thai Airways is always a delight to fly. A real treat in the past I really really miss was flying business class in their A-380. What a wonderful plane made even better with the exceptional Thai crews. In the day, equal to Singapore Airlines in every respect. Just last month I flew Thai business class from Frankfurt to Bangkok ( connecting to Phuket). Great flight but the triple 7 a little bit needing a refresh like their 787-9 which I understand is very good. But still a good, comfortable flight and the food was fine. But caviar on their Milano flight wow! Now that's a treat indeed for business class. Sign me up.
It must be your lucky time with Thai, as my experience was not as happy as you are plus when I write a letter, the company never responds, until now.
Flu with Thai on business class, Sydney to Istanbul and Istanbul to Sydney, both journeys was awful.
I will never fly with them, usually I fly with Singapore, but I like just to try, my heart say no, I should listen my heard. In the and the experience with Thai ruined my beautiful holidays.
Not again Thai
You just got a response today from TG?
What did they say?
I think he meant up to now, no reply from Thai.
What perfect timing… you’ve made me so excited for my flight with them this week, PEK-BKK-ARN.
I won't fly Thai due to their punitive cancelation policy (not, 'free if cenceled 24 hours from booking', instead 'free if canceled before midnight Thailand time the day of the booking').
They're not competitive with Eva, Starlux, or Singapore in terms of quality or business integrity
So you won’t fly Thai because you don’t want to fly Thai since you want to cancel the ticket anyway?
Sometimes plans change - you book something and think, hey, I'm in the cancelation window, no big deal, right?
Thai have a unique cancelation policy and took 25% of the total cost of 4 business seats from me when I canceled eight hours after making the reservation. So, like, whatever - Singapore/EVA/StarLUX get my cash now, and are better carriers regardless
Another entitlement issues.
I don't believe TG even have a 'free' cancelations policy. Especially they're not flying to USA anymore.
You have a blog, here, where the USA based blog owner talks about inconsistent policies between international airlines, including (what he sees as) punitive cancelation policies (for example most recently with Etihad).
I'm highlighting my own issue in a comment about TG where people might like other aspects of the airline but be caught out expecting a consistent 'free to cancel within 24hr' policy - one shared by most major international airlines.
They don't make...
You have a blog, here, where the USA based blog owner talks about inconsistent policies between international airlines, including (what he sees as) punitive cancelation policies (for example most recently with Etihad).
I'm highlighting my own issue in a comment about TG where people might like other aspects of the airline but be caught out expecting a consistent 'free to cancel within 24hr' policy - one shared by most major international airlines.
They don't make it clear on their website and it's not easy to find the exact wording: boils down to ' free to cancel before midnight Thailand time day of booking' which in my case was around 4 hours after booking.
They're fine as a carrier - food and staff are good, planes are old and not competitive with the best. Their customer service is awful.
Personally, I won't fly them again - flying with a family things change and you'd expect to have some degree of assurance with an international class carrier - your milage may vary
"expecting a consistent 'free to cancel within 24hr' policy" ergo entitlement.
"They don't make it clear on their website" so you can't find their policy but assume it exists, ergo entitlement.
You may have had a bad experience with TG. But it's all from your entitlement issues.
And I'm not going into "punitive" since you obviously have entitlement issues and the topic will go nowhere with entitlement.
Nor am I aware TG has any 25%...
"expecting a consistent 'free to cancel within 24hr' policy" ergo entitlement.
"They don't make it clear on their website" so you can't find their policy but assume it exists, ergo entitlement.
You may have had a bad experience with TG. But it's all from your entitlement issues.
And I'm not going into "punitive" since you obviously have entitlement issues and the topic will go nowhere with entitlement.
Nor am I aware TG has any 25% penalty on anything, it's always a fixed amount.
But it's your wallet in a free market. You can hate and avoid TG because T is the 20th alphabet. Your choice.
Exactly, my pedantic troll-chum
“Service began with a snack mix (nuts and fried fruit)”
“turnip omelet, and stir friend eggplant”
Fried fruit, new one for me.
Friend eggplant, hmmm very Freudian.
I can't help but feel that TG really missed the bag with the growth in Thailand popularity in the recent years, but weren't able to restore US service or expand more meaningfully due to the BKK category restrictions.
The East Asian carriers are really eating TGs lunch with SQ also cleaning house. Even VN has nonstop SFO flights now.
There is no BKK category restrictions.
You are probably referencing to IASA from FAA, which itself is not quite credible itself lately. But the autocrat can't downgrade itself. Just ask MAX.
But even without USA weaponizing FAA, they could have done better with other non US markets.
Am about to travel on Thai J Bkk-Sin on what was supposed to be an A359 but has since been switched to B788.
Not holding my hopes up about the caviar service. But in case lightning strikes will report back.
It's already wrong to even expect caviar.
You're more likely to literally get struck by lightning than wrong catering.
I thought it was a thing of the past but seems TG is still known for last minute equipment swaps. Mostly for the worse.
I'm guessing "(nuts and fried fruit)" contains a typo, or some real creativity in menu planning.
This. TG breakfast looks great. I always complain about Qantas business class breakfast as it is invariably extremely limited and poor quality regardless of which route. However last week I flew BA Singapore to Sydney & when I awoke requesting breakfast they advised they had none left. Surely you are joking I said. "No, we only catered 80%". Unfortunately the entire flight was at 100% so I landed starving as I had made the choice...
This. TG breakfast looks great. I always complain about Qantas business class breakfast as it is invariably extremely limited and poor quality regardless of which route. However last week I flew BA Singapore to Sydney & when I awoke requesting breakfast they advised they had none left. Surely you are joking I said. "No, we only catered 80%". Unfortunately the entire flight was at 100% so I landed starving as I had made the choice to ignore the evening meal and go straight to sleep, ugh! Ah well, reminded me of why I never normally travel BA & definitely won't again, appalling.
That's the best breakfast I have ever seen on an airplane!
MXP is having massive issues with hours-long-queues at immigration atm, especially in the morning when a bunch of long-hauls from Asia and the Americas land simultaneously (not enough police officers deployed at the airport, and e-gates are a nightmare). I hope you weren't trapped in one of those lines...
It sure sounds like a lot of TG’s lost mojo is back, mojo that Star Alliance partners ANA and EVA had stolen over the last decade. Great to see TG and MH bounce back — all while GA continues to slide.
Agreed, it's great to see TG regain their mojo. I used to fly TG frequently and hands down it served some of the tastiest aeroplane meals I've ever had, and perhaps some of my favourite Thai meals anywhere on Earth. I also frequented the FT TG forum until the THAI News thread became one of the few that got regularly updated, with news about yet more financial difficulties or yet more leadership change involving personnel with questionable qualifications.
Lost mojo?
Not to worry, VT-CIE is here.
Just "visualise yourself flying Qsuites or Air France or JAL or something of that kind! ;)"
Pitty I didnt know you where in Milan
Would have inviter you for dinner
Hahaha sarei venuto anch'io
I've had caviar presented like that as well on ANA F, just in a little jar on its own. Don't really understand the fascination with caviar. I get that it's supposed to signal high end but it just doesn't really do anything for me
Thanks for the timely review.
I'm booked in Thai business from Frankfurt to Singapore via Bangkok in January, both flights in business on a 777-300ER. Any idea whether I'll experience the same hard and soft product and what the differences (due to the different aircraft and/or the inbound vs outbound long-haul routing) may be?
FRA - BKK does not get caviar
Sadly, I don’t think so. I flew Thai from Frankfurt to Bangkok earlier this year and the catering was abysmal. I believe this is the case for all flights that do not originate at BKK.
Hey Ben, about those missing caviar accompaniments, the purser suggested that I should try the caviar as a spread on the garlic bread. Wowza! My new favorite way to eat it!
I don't mind the way they served the caviar though it'd be nice if they included a small spoon. I think the mother-of-pearl spoon with caviar thing is cute and appreciate but kind of a gimmick--I would say that more often than not, with a caviar course at a 2 or 3 Michelin starred restaurant, I am still given metal cutlery. I find the diced onions and egg whites to be superfluous--good caviar should stand on its own!
I recall Ben puts caviar on his eggs lol
Bravo
Fully agree that good caviar should stand on its own.
Agree on the small spoon but disagree on the mother of pearl being a gimmick. A small plastic spoon would do - but metal does mess with the taste of the caviar.
Yum, yum, yum! lol
I don't understand for the life of me how plenty of airlines especially the highly-regarded ones can't seem to be creative with their meals. Like does it always have to be some random scrambled eggs and tomatoes for breakfast with breakfast meat or cake for dessert?!
It's sad to be honest.
Having some education and appreciation is good for life!
There would surely have been a Thai food option for breakfast. I'd always choose that on TG, particularly ex-BKK.