Goldpanner

My point was, if Biz class pays so well why are aircraft taking on more economy and less Biz class? Biz/ first class and Economy are symbiotic, without each other they couldnt economically exist. Its economy that pays a lot of the fuel and biz where some of the profit is, but the future is more economy and less Biz and First As for the London Perth Route? It will die a death. Perth is a teeny little place and I suspect the main attraction for running out to Oz is the Stopovers allowed in Bangkok, KL Singapore or Hong Kong. On its own I just cannot see the traffic for a direct flight. Keerist ! a 10+ Hours and an A380 does me in. Its a good publicity stunt, but will be pulled very quietly in around 6 months I suspect

If you dig around in SE Asia newspapers you will find Piracy on the high seas anywhere in Asia is at a terrible level. You dont hear about it much here but there was a Channel 4programme on TV 2 years back showing the problem All it would take would be a fast boat and Kalashnikov to start hitting tourist boats. they would make a mint. Watch this space.

I didnt mean to class Eva in with BA scum but I still think its despicable for them to cram more seats in. I wont fly with them. Then again I never have so no change there. You comment about increasing capacityorface rising rising prices wontt work as theres simply too much competition on the UK/EU to Orient routes. If your hypothesis was right then why have BA joined the cheapie market? something they swore they would never do. 10 year back when Thai were selling uk-BKK for £450 BA were over £650, Now? BA are the cheapest Non stop London-BKK airline at under £500. I will never fly BA anywhere ever again. I've flown them 3 times now and every time was a catastrophy, The last flight to BKK on their atrocious 777 cost them 600 Euros in compensation to me, plus an overnight stay in a hotel plusfood and transfers. That is substantially more than I even paid for the ticket in the first place and I encouraged everyone to claim from BA. The CAA isnt worth a bean as they have no powers and wont even respond to complaints about BA other than brusque brush offs. I always hear about economy being the least profitable. Personally and these days I think thats a fallacy propogated on airlines and expenses of the 80's. If it was true nowadays, why have some airlines completely removed Business class or severely reduced them to get more economy seats in ? On the Thai A380 I flew last October from LHR to BKK there was NO business class whatsoever on the lower deck but on the A380 earlier in the year the forward half of the plane was Business and that was mostly empty when I did a walk through. ! If you price economy punters out of long haul, the airlines will go bust. Work out the economics. Yes I can see airlines going for paid food via ticket prices and I personally see no need for 30KG baggage allowance for any regular tourist though my daughter needs about 50KG just for her makeup!. My baggage is never over 8 or 9 Kg and thats with a Pilots case that weighs 3Kg. Maybe they could create giant gliders to be towed behind the A380's and why cant they build more Antonov An-225's and put seats in? 1000 passengers maybe?? theres a thought. I can see the return of giant airships too. a 2 or 3 week flight to Australia travelling ever so slowly, though it would be a giant bullseye in the sky for terrorists. I know my next trip to Thailand will be my last, and to be honest I'm still not even 50% sure I'm going to go. Bangkok and Pattaya hold no surprises or excitment for me now, Many of my friends are either dead or moved away and the only real reason for going was to transit through to Phnom Penh to see someone. There are sufficent Thai girls down south here if I get an urgent need to shag one other than my wife. and now the space bar onmy laptophasjust packedup. Oh Bollocksim going backto bed

Life would have been so much better and faster if the US hadnt fucked up the whole Concorde thing for nothing but jealousy. If Concorde had been allowed to land at all US airports, more would have been built, there would have been more development and then bigger Concorde's. But the USA couldnt make a supersonic passenger jet themselves so they made sure no one else would beat them. The USA's actions in respect to Concorde held back aircraft design and development for decades and they should be ashamed of themselves. They are still seething over the Airbus A380 and developing nothing new. Even the Dreamliner is nothing but an old design with new materials and I wont even fly on one of the junkpiles after seeing the video I posted a few months back. However, the UK government have to also take some blame by clamming up on the developers of the supersonic scram jet which would have allowed trips from UK to Oz in a couple of hours. Its only recently they have been allowed to open up developpment and sell patents to the US. Personally I loved the old 707. It was a comfortable old bus and the food was always good. It was also the plane that brought cheap travel to the world before the 747 And in opposition to Jacko's comments I think Economy, on most long haul airlines is getting better and better. Of course you dont see the Economy passengers, fool, because they are behind the snob class. I dont fly either snob or snot class even though I can afford it, much preferring Economy simply for the money saved. There's no way a semi recline bed, metal knives and forks and grovelling waitresses can be justified by a £1000 and £2000 hike in the price. OK if you only fly rarely then I supposes its a treat to be treated like you actually are somebody but its not for me. I do agree that some scum airlines like BA and Eva are taking out Exit seats to squeeze more punters in and I wont fly them, but seats and leg room in most A380s now arent bad at all and with a sleeping pill, I sleep from an hor or so after take-off to an hour or so before landing. I also suspect that BA's removal of the wing Exit doors and putting in extra seats is simply a desperation act to try and keep their failing airlines going. They were once the best, now they dont even rate half way down the list and are one above Ryanair (who are scum).

OK Bt of a thread drift here, but, it seems to me, the more computers, satellites and other tech the Meteorologists get, the worse their weather forecasts are.

What with the Banditry that goes on, I would be very worried about taking a ferry from Patts to anywhere.

I plan meticulously then 20 seconds after Isit in the first beer bar the plans go out the window.

A 'Bargain' is what someone is happy with. I'm just a tight bastard

In the late 80's I went to Russia and Byelorussia, to Minsk and then down to Gomel.Just outside the station was about 10 HUGE steam trains that my guide said were leftover from the war. Massive big red stars on the front of them.Thes trains were so big, never seen anything that big before. From Gomel we went to Pripyat next to Chernobyl. Scary place especially when the man turned the geiger counter on. I still swear my balls glow at night !! And thats not even after I play with them.

Snap. I used to get a Platform ticket and sit on the Platform at Becontree station noting train numbers down, then started taking the numbers of the Underground trains. I grew out of taking down car numbers around 1963 but did get into Bus model numbers for some time. Nerds-R-Me

I thought I was the only nerd looking at the planes overhead and then checking flightradar to see who they were. I also have a radio listening to the various frequencies. Nerds R Us

Ahh the days when you could smoke on a plane and when they had ashtrays in the armrests. Also a time when the toilet cubicles were a decent size

I dont know if all members know about of have seen this but its brilliant for checking and looking at flights around the world and also for seeing the total number of planes in the air at any one time. You can also choose a cockpit view so you can sort of be in the pilots seat when it takes off. https://www.flightradar24.com/50.82,-1.5

I dont know if this has been mentioned but I noticed this on the Bell Bus Website From Suvanabhumi Airport to Pattaya, Bell can not accept walk-in customers. Advance booking via website only!!! (Announced Sept 20th, 2016)

On most Long Haul flights from the UK there are beds for the waitresses. Even back in the 80's Phillippine Airlines had beds for their waitresses on their 747's http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-3619416/Inside-hidden-bedrooms-cabin-crew-sleep-Flight-attendants-lie-flat-beds-relax-say-s-like-coffin.html

Another thing I should have mentioned, Technically, Cross border or Cross ticketting is against most airlines rules. It was easier to police pre-internet but nowadays its quite hard for the airliness to double check.The reasoning is that many airlines dont have traffic rights to fly from say LHR to Bangkok so they get round it by selling tickets from their home base or an airport they do have traffic rights from then leaving it to you to buy the connecting ticket. China Airlines was one of those They never had traffic rights to fly from London or Manchester to Bangkok, they didnt actually have landing permission in the UK at Heathrow either so thats how they got away with it by flying a different airline to Amsterdam then onto the China Airlines flight.. But if an air company has landing rights in the UK they cannot sell say, London to Bangkok if their home base is say Sweden or Finland or Norway So its something to be carefull of, Legally they can just tear your ticket up if you have bought a ticket from say Finland dor Greece or somewhere like that outside of the EU. They probably wont as competition is so high now, but they have the right to under most airlines and Agents terms and conditions..However you wont be covered by any ATOL or IATA compensation. The whole nasty Cross Border thing is a very complicated and mixed up thing which has been bubbling along for years and which airlines will have to sort out sooner or later, Its also part of the larger Cross ticketting problem where several sectors are ticketted and one of the sectors are dropped. Effectively thats what a lot of the error fares are. A more interesting question arises about Consumer protection laws. You buy a ticket online from say Turkey or Finland what Protection do you have? in most cases a big fat ZERO Strangely, Cross Channel Ferry companies stopped the practice of a sort of Cross Ticketting. Thats when the return fare is cheaper than the one way so chummy buys a return ticket then throws the return sector away. If youre never going to travel again youre ok, But Names and Registration numbers along with Passport numbers are now on record and you could be booted off the next ferry ! Some interesting notes http://www.businesstravelnews.com/More-News/BA-Automation-Aims-To-Eliminate-Cross-Border-Ticketing An old post but relevant http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/british-airways-executive-club/31256-cross-border-ticketing.html http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-09-238_en.htm?locale=en

I dont care who runs a taxi service so long as they dont expect me to tip them. I will never tip Taxi drivers, then again I dont tip anyone even in the US

Exactly ! The other point with those Error fares is, many blokes have very tight schedules for holidays and want the max time in Thailand so sodding about chase arsing around getting a Visa simply for a change of aircraft and for with silly fares and sillier airlines is simply not possible. You will rarely if ever see an Error fare on a half decent airline departing Ex UK airports. Theres far too many people in the ticketting line to let one through.

And for a first timer? if you havent been in that heat before alongside drinking a lot of beer? buy some rehydration packs from your chemist. Oneof those in the morning works wonders. Do chemists still sell Resolve? thats what I used to take.

It realy depends upon the airport and the efficiency of their staff and computer systems.It is possible,to get booked through,but depends on the operator and how they see the rules. However, in general you would have to ffly to the cheap departure airport, leave airside, pass immigration then collect your bags and re-check in. One of the main problems is, if you got your cheapie ex Paris, the UK departure air company may not have direct computer access to the forwarding air company in Paris. They can access their system OK in the UK but I doubt they would be able to check someone in for deparrure Ex Paris when they effectively only have a UK-Paris Ticket.. Luggage Labels would only be issued as per the London-Paris flight. as per the Booking agent PNR number. Its different when you book the whole thing in one go including various carriers as the computers will already have all the connecting flights down inputted by the selling agent or consolidator. But its realy cross fingers and chance. To be honest Ive never realy seen any Error flights worth botherng about. I was once going to try a GermanWings flight to Bangkok asit was so cheap. Then I added on the London-Frankfurt sector and it just didnt add up. BUT, saying that about error fares. I have seen some realy good packge deals offered by them. No Im no longer in the Music business I may try some of them out.

Just a follow up for anyone interested in these Error fares and also Fares that departf from non UK airports. Before you even consider booking, check up how much the connecting flights from the UK to the departure airport is going to cost. When those costs are factored in the fares are little different than what you would pay from the UK

All good advice above. My advice would be to have a Hotel booking site open then also Google street view so you can see if the Hotel is surrounded by Bars cos if it is you wont get much sleep

From reports Ive had, it isnt the airline, its the clowns and security etc in the Airport. I can actually put up with some crap airlines as I just drop a sleeping pill and sleep. But I realy dont like being sodded about by jumped up self important Security guards or information desk people who dont speak English when transitting airports.. For a real frightener try Jetair, the change of aircraft in their airport needs to be experieced as you just couldnt write about how bad it is as people wouldnt believe you. Ah well off to work

Here are some links to sites posting Error Fares and cheapie fares to Bangkok from departure points outside of the UK Some of the fares look very good, but then you have to factor in the cost of getting to and from those airports in the first place plus a change of aircraft and sometimes the necessity of actually having to get a Visa for the country as you wont have a through ticket with some but not all airports as some dont have transit desks. http://www.secretflying.com/ https://www.holidaypirates.com/

My comments about Thai in the 80's were in response to someone saying they thought Thai had never run a direct service from MCR Personally I think one flight a week from MCR now would probably work so long it was , say a Friday late departure or a weekend flight. BUT ! would the cargo hold be able to hold all the clogs ??