CheshireTom

echster, Thanks for the update. These 5 x A340-600 are going to be busy aircraft ............ Milan, Tokyo, Zurich, Auckland, Johannesburg, Osaka and Los Angeles at the last count. Any I've missed? Paris? Madrid? Given the cock-ups with the A340-600 schedules on the Auckland, Zurich and Milan routes, I'm surprised Thai knows what it will be doing next month, no matter next year. When is the next investors' presentation? Next month? It will be nice to get some clarification what they are getting up to. That said, the LAX flight would make sense to be upgraded to a A346 sinc

pattayaman, Qatar flies from MAN 4 x weekly. Mo, We, Th, Su outbound and Mo, Tu, Th, Sa on the return. You could try using the Pricerunner site to pull up prices. It will search concurrently on most of the major agents sites and saves a lot of legwork. Pricerunner Tom

CI has taken delivery of its first 747 Dreamliner. The interiors are rumoured to be a huge improvement on the other aircraft (I will try and find some pics on the net and post them). At the moment I think AMS gets the aircraft either once or twice weekly. Tom

mister handy, Most schedules at the moment are up to the end of summer daylight saving time at the end of October. I would assume therefore the winter schedules should be available within the next 4-6 weeks. Tom

davethailand, That is pretty standard for most large hotels these days. Somebody owns the property and somebody else like (in this case) starwood, accor or 6 seasons run the place on a management contract which obviously results in lower costs in relation to marketing, suppliers etc. On the flip side of the coin it releases the hotel groups from having their cash tied up in the property market. Tom

mister handy, You're simply looking too far in advance at the moment for booking on a LCC. The simplest way to check whether that is the case or whether the flight is full is to pull up the airline schedule rather than try to make a booking. Tom

Disregarding cost, my paticular favourites over the last ten years or so would be: 1. Singapore 2. Qatar 3. China Airlines 4. EVA 5. Emirates 6. Swiss 7. BA 8. Thai There have been others that are totally forgetable but I'm getting too old for that type of crap nowadays. It's quite sad to think that, at one time, the likes of Tarom and Biman were on the list of possibles! I've not flown with Cathay yet ....... perhaps if they reintroduce their MAN service I would be tempted. Although Malaysia have a good reputation and good flight times from MAN, I always have this

bigmofo, The option of the Thai operated aircraft is available daily. The Swiss flight numbers from/to Zurich are LX4300/4301 respectively. Booking the flight on the Swiss flight numbers is cheaper than trying to book the same aircraft through Thai. You can opt to mix the flight operators (fly out with Thai, back with Swiss or v.v.) to suit yourself. Zurich should be getting the new Thai A340-600 with PTV etc in economy but Thai has a lot of issues with new aircraft arriving, the ongoing refurbishment, new routes being opened etc so it will be a bit hit and miss whether they put tha

BongoBill, I always take the Qatar Thursday night flight and am normally in my Bangkok hotel by 20:30 and out on the town an hour later. I tend to spend the first two nights in BKK and make the drive to Pattaya on the Sunday afternoon at a more leisurely pace. Life's too short to join the Wacky Races trying to get to Pattaya through the Friday night traffic. I think the quickest door-to-door service from MAN is on the Swiss/Thai codeshares through Zurich. Tom

China Airlines now have three 744 configurations flying the AMS-BKK route so it is a bit hit and miss which one you will get. Regardless of the configuration Row 10, seats B and J provide the best legroom. You can pre-allocate your seat 90 days in advance through CI's London Office on 0207 436 9001. They are really very helpful and accommodating. China Airlines 744 Seatmaps I think most boardies book through Gazelle Travel in Newcastle to include the klmuk connecting flights. Gazelle Travel Regards, Tom

Other than the fact that Kuwait probably do the cheapest twin-centre option for Bangkok and Manila (around 550 quid) they don't really have a lot going for them. Use the search function on this site ..... there has been enough comments made in the past about them. Tom

Gulf Air has announced a new 3 x weekly non-stop service between Dublin and Bahrain. The schedule is not due to commence until the first week of December but it may afford some high-season bargains for those guys on the other side of the water. The schedule links into connections to/from Bangkok and looks something like: Dublin - Bangkok Wed, Fri, Sun (arrives BKK Thu, Sat, Mon) GF24 Dep DUB 0830 Arr BAH 1905 GF150 Dep BAH 2230 Arr BKK 0910 +1 Bangkok - Dublin Tue, Thu, Sat (arrives DUB Wed, Fri, Sun) GF151 Dep BKK 1825 Arr BAH 2200 GF23 Dep BAH 0115 +1

Duece, The e-mail has been the subject of internet urban legend for some time. http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_tsunami_victim.htm The subject of these alerts was identified as Sophia Michl, age 10, of Germany, and returned to her homeland soon after the photo above was posted on the Web site of Phuket International Hospital and circulated via forwarded email in January 2005. Sophia had been brought to Phuket Hospital after becoming separated from her parents when the Indian Ocean tsunami struck the Thai island last December 26. She was identified by a co-worker of her

I've never flown with them but apparently their economy class is good value.

Floyd, I agree. On some of the proposed A340-600 routes the codeshare airlines' schedules show the TG flight as being "346", whereas the TG site simply shows the aircraft type as being "EQV" i.e. we're not quite sure. Maybe echster or emil may have more insight as to what is actually happening as there seems to be a million rumours around but very few announcements by TG. Hopefully, next month's investors presentation will clarify some of the rumours. Tom

explorer, Thanks for clarifying the position - it's much appreciated. Tom

I read on another forum that Thai is considering delaying the delivery of its Airbus aircraft that are due for delivery later this year. The article was posted on 30 June so does anybody know what Thai is up to? Obviously, any such decision would impact on the proposed LAX and Auckland non-stops amongst others. The full article was: "Last weekend, Kanok Abhiradee, president of state-controlled Thai Airways, was quoted saying that the carrier would review its plans to take delivery of five Airbus aircraft this year, after Thaksin Shinawatra, the prime minister, urged state enterprises

The Royal Bank of Scotland will issue the 5 Pound notes on Thursday ........... and you can spend it.

Gus, It's a bit of an anomaly of how you measure the width of the seats. EVA, in this case, have obviously taken it to be the distance between the inside of the armrests. If you measure the width between the centre of the armrests then Elite would probably come out around 2 inches wider than economy. Anyway, it's good to see EVA looking after the guys in the middle and back of the plane ........... something that Thai could learn from. Tom

Gus, "In addition, Premium Laurel passengers enjoy a novel Inflight Beverage Island that EVA has stocked with a full menu of refreshments, from designer water and fine wines to snacks and gourmet treats. Creative lighting and dry-ice effects add to the island's unusual onboard ambiance." All that money and effort spent on the new seats and you'll probably spend the full 12 hours propping up the bar in premium laurel! Tom

TFC, Again, to make a like-for-like comparison, EK seats 42 Biz Class and 304 Econ Class pax on its 777s. A typical direct competitor on the same route (SQ) seats 30 Biz Class and 293 Econ pax on an identical aircraft. If you want to maintain that by puting an additional 12 Biz Class and 9 Econ class seats on an aircraft makes it more spacious then fine. On the flip side of the coin, EK's seat configurations on its A330's are typical with other operators (e.g. Qatar and Etihad) of the same aircraft type i.e. a 2-4-2 configuration in Economy. Tom

TFC, Every other scheduled airline in the world that flies to the UK would tend to disagree. If they thought that they could put in 10 seats per row and get away with it, they would. Even BA dropped its infamous 10 abreast configuration on its Caribbean services a couple of years ago. The EK 777 cabin looks more crowded for no other reason than it is. I disagree also that seat pitch and width are the same on the EK 777 and 330. The actual figures for their fleet are (Aircraft/Pitch/Width/Seats Abreast): A330-200 32" 17.99" 8 B777-300 33-34" 17.32" 10 As a quick like-for-lik

makavelli, Emirates afternoon flight ex MAN is a high-density 777 (the evening flight is a more respectable airbus 330) .......... that means that in economy they have 10 seats across the cabin which is a charter airline configuration. I don't know of any other scheduled airline that puts more than 9 seats across in economy. Wherever you sit, you don't want to be in the middle of a row in any circumstances as it is seriously cramped. The only semi-decent seats in economy are by the emergency exits, however, , reservations staff will normally be unable to allocate these seats to you.

I understand that due to tech problems yesterday's New York "non-stop" service was replaced by the new A340-600 flying via Osaka. I would assume there were a few pissed-off people in New York.

marleyboy, Notwithstanding your second post, I was in a similar situation a couple of years ago. My experience with transferring miles was ridiculous. In the end, I simply converted my miles to hotel upgrades which have an additional year's validity and lorded it at the Sheraton Grande Sukhumvit for a couple of nights. IMHO Thai has abandoned its economy pax to concentrate on the front end of the aircraft as witnessed by the lack of any tangible improvements in their economy product during the 747 refurbishments. It looks like the London crowd will have to wait 3-4 years when the