Thai swaps Airbus A340 for Boeing 747 on Sydney-Bangkok flights
By John Walton, December 19 2011
IN BRIEF | Thai Airways is changing the plane it uses on its Sydney-Bangkok flights, with a larger Boeing 747-400 replacing the current Airbus A340-600.
According to Sydney Airport, the changes will come into place from 16 January 2012 and will run to at least 24 March, which is about as far forward as most airline schedules are looking at the moment.
It's slightly mixed news for business travellers: the A340 is renowned for its quiet cabin, while the 747 is prized by many business class passengers for its small, exclusive upper deck seating area.
The 747 will be slightly better for business class availability, since it has more business seats than the A340.
But if you're travelling on Thai from mid-January onwards, you should check that your seating preferences have been set properly: when planes change, your seat might not have changed properly with it.
Thai has three different seat maps and internal configurations for its 747 fleet. That makes it hard to know which type of business class seat will be on board your flight.
We'll delve more into the best seats to pick if you're travelling in business class on Thai's three separate 747-400 configurations tomorrow.
Aviation journalist and travel columnist John took his first long-haul flight when he was eight weeks old and hasn't looked back since. Well, except when facing rearwards in business class.
15 Apr 2011
Total posts 580
On all flights or just 1 daily flight? The 744 lacks IFE, so I'd be taking the A346 if I could.
14 Jan 2012
Total posts 14
This is only a positive for people who have the luxury of flying in Business class. I recenty flew on a Thai Airways 747 to Frankfurt and it wasn't the best. Sitting in a plane for 10 hours sharing small overhead TV's didn't really work for me. I believe that the 747 fleet needs to be retired from service or at least refitted with a new economy class cabin as they have done in the Business class cabin. Overall I have to say that Thai offers great customer service its just ashame that my flight couldn't have been as enjoyable as my flight from Sydney to Bangkok on the A340.
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