During the past couple of months it’s been especially difficult finding Business Class redemptions between Europe and Tokyo. However, thanks to one of my AwardFares alerts, I was lucky to discover one day that there were 2 seats available from CPH to HND via BKK, which I snagged immediately!
The first leg of the trip was with Thai Airways. It’s been a long time since I’ve flown a long-haul flight with them, so I was looking forward to reviewing the experience.
| Route | CPH-BKK |
| Flight | TG951 |
| Cabin | Business |
| Equipment | B777-300ER |
| Aircraft | HS-TKN |
| Flight Time | 10h 24m |
Dated, but Comfortable Cabin
While Thai has a new cabin on some of their 777s, the CPH-BKK route still uses the old business class cabin. It definitely looks and feels a bit dated. But, other than that, the seat was still comfortable and the area around the seat felt very spacious.
Since this was a last-minute booking, I wasn’t able to select a window seat during booking or check-in. While checking the seat map I could see that there were several window seats unoccupied (but blocked). Luckily once boarding had completed, I asked the cabin crew if I could move to one of the empty window seats, which they accommodated.
The 777-300ER has a forward and rear Business Class cabin. Unfortunately I had an aisle-facing window seat on the very last row of the Business cabin, whereas the number one choice would have been a window-facing (true) window seat. On the other hand, since this was a bassinet seat, the storage space beside the seat was huge, which was nice.
IFE, Power, and Connectivity
In terms of movies and entertainment, this cabin definitely lags behind. I would say one of the biggest drawbacks of this older cabin is the small IFE screen. The movie selection wasn’t particularly interesting either, with few recent releases available.
Unfortunately, these older 777s are not equipped with WiFi, which is another downside if you’re hoping to get some work done. Also, all Business Class seats have both power outlets and USB charging ports. However, the power outlets were not working on this particular flight. I overheard the crew explaining that it was working on the outbound flight to CPH, but for some reason, it wasn’t working on this return flight back to Bangkok.
Fantastic Service and Decent Food
The highlight of this flight was definitely the crew. The service was fantastic throughout the flight, and the cabin crew was constantly walking through the cabin, offering drinks and snacks, and making sure the lavatories were nice and clean.
Menus were available at the seat during boarding, and the cabin crew took our meal choices prior to departure.
Shortly after takeoff, drinks and nuts were served.
This was followed by an amuse bouche, consisting of fish cakes with Thai chili sauce, which was really delicious! For the main dish I ordered the fish curry, which was good.
For breakfast, the crew offered both Western and Asian choices. As someone who definitely prefers Asian breakfast, I chose the noodles, which were tasty!
There were also several “All Day Dining” options available to order in between meal service. I wish I had tried some, since I started to get a bit hungry towards the end of the flight, but I instead opted to wait for breakfast (which unfortunately was delayed a bit due to some turbulence).
Summary
Overall it was a great flight. I knew that the cabin was of an older type, so I came into the trip knowing that I wouldn’t be expecting the latest and greatest in terms of hard product. However, what really surprised me was the fantastic service and crew on this flight. Also, the food was good, the seat was comfortable, and I was able to rest and watch some movies.
Next time I hope I can try the new Thai Airways cabin instead, which at the time of writing this, is only available on their London, Osaka, and Tokyo routes.