Flight check: Auckland to Bangkok on Thai Airways

Thai Airways. Photo / Chung Lun Chiang

Donna McIntyre flies TG492 from New Zealand to Thailand.

The plane: A Boeing 777.

Class: Economy.

Price: Two return fares Auckland to Brussels through Bangkok were $4366, so roughly one eighth of that.

Flight time: A little late leaving. We still landed on time at Bangkok.

My seat: 58B. We were near the back of the plane and close to the family groups (my husband beside me in the window seat had the joy of sitting in front of a Minion seat-kicker.) Seats were wide enough with just enough room for legs. There have been times in my life when I wished I had longer legs. This was not one of them.

Fellow passengers: Start of school holidays so quite a few families. At a glance, mainly Kiwi, Thai and Indian.

Entertainment: New releases including The Jungle Book and Eddie the Eagle. Started with a Sally Field movie about someone called Doris, lost interest in that and instead watched London Has Fallen (lots of shooting) and Couples Retreat and then dozed to music.

How full? Chocka and the same in business, or so check-in said. Friday at the beginning of school holidays. Go figure.

Service: Considering how full the plane was, it was amazing. Quick, efficient, friendly. Buzzed the service button and an attendant was there pronto.

Food and drink: I pre-ordered Asian vegetarian meals simply because I could. Nice. Spicy but not too much. And those meals came out before the non-special-requirement ones. Drinks options were a good variety

Toilets: Okay, except the time when someone had peed on the floor. Yuk.

Luggage: I had 23kg of the allowed 30kg allowance of checked-in luggage. And that felt heavy enough.

The airport experience: Auckland was straightforward; I enjoyed a pre-flight coffee at Shakey Isles. In Bangkok, transit was smooth and it's great that you can have a massage while waiting for your connecting flight.

Would I fly this again? Yes, good fare, great service ... A bit more space and bigger screens would've been nice. The bonus for us, however, was that we could fly straight to our destination of Brussels from Bangkok. (And lucky us on that leg, because a half-full plane meant there was lots of room to stretch out and sleep.)