Hello (from Thailand!)

Hello all,

I wanted to get online to just say a very quick hello since it’s been 4 days now and the pain of being without my computer is really getting to me…!! :rolleyes:

Anyway, what can I say? So far, it’s been an excellent trip.

We got to Heathrow for 5.10pm on Wednesday afternoon for our 9.35pm flight, so plenty of time to check in for it. We were given rows 47 and 48, seats J & K each time – 2 window seats.

Heathrow was extremely boring and I had been around the few shops that appealed to me in no time at all. At about 8.20pm, we were called to board the aircraft at gate 31. Boarding started by about 8.40pm and was complete within 30 minutes. The aircraft was practically empty though. It looked as if no passengers had been assigned the seats in the middle of the aircraft, and very few occupied the seats next to the windows. I would estimate that the aircraft was perhaps 40-50% full. Once the doors was closed, we were given permission to move about the aircraft and to sit where we wanted to.

The aircraft was not HS-TGW, like I had wanted, but instead, HS-TGZ, one that was on my prediction list!

The estimated flight time was 11h 20minutes, and we done it in 11h 10min, much slower than last time. Our route (off the top of my head) was obviously over Eastern Europe, Kabul (again), Delhi etc. We had to hold for a good 15 minutes due to Bangkok being very busy.

Service was excellent, better than last time. With few passengers to cater for, the crew were out in force, serving an evening meal of either Salmon or Chicken. We were also served a cooked breakfast before landing. I felt stuff when I got off the aircraft later on.

I took the camera with me, as always, and got some shots. I can’t show them at the moment since I haven’t got the cable with me, but they’re nothing special anyway. Not much in the way of foreign aircraft in Bangkok when we arrived – Thai 772s, 773s, a single Md-11, 734s, 743s and a few 744s (HS-TGW included!). I took many out of the window shots, including a closeup of the winglet and flaps/spoilers in action on landing and descending.

We departed Heathrow about 10 minutes late in the end, since there was a lot of arriving traffic. We taxiied behind an EVA Air 747, but I don’t think this took off ahead of us. All arriving and departing traffic seemed to go only from runway 27R.

I can’t remember the runway at Bangkok. We landed to the left of the golf course which lies between the two runways, and once reaching the end, took a right turn off of it, holding behind an A330 of Thai, whilst traffic took off from the other runway.

That’s it for now. Hope everyone is doing well and speak to some of you soon. 🙂