I love Thai Airways. I don’t understand which blogger started the meme that Thai doesn’t have great service in the air, since I’ve only had superlative service experiences on Thai in first class. Or maybe it’s like a reverse racism thing where Asian people get better service on Thai than white people, similar to how white people get better service on Lufthansa than Asian people.

Thai A380 to Bangkok
I received a very warm welcome on board. My special meal request of VGML was proactively confirmed, and slippers and a Rimowa amenity kit were already at the seat.
The seat is spacious and comfortable. It’s not a fully enclosed suite, but I think I prefer non-suites anyway since it makes the cabin feel airier. There’s tons of storage space at the seat, particularly for window seats. The in-flight entertainment had a decent selection and was very responsive.

First class seat

Ottoman, table, and IFE screen

Tons of storage at the seat

More seat storage, controls, and screen of unknown function

View across the cabin
Since first class is on the upper deck of the A380 for Thai, there are two large spaces to fill. Emirates has two showers; Lufthansa has bathrooms with urinals; Thai has a “lounge” on one side and a large bathroom on the other. The lounge is nothing special; the bathroom feels a little oddly divided, but I appreciate having lots of space to change.

First class “lounge”

Sizable first class bathroom

Yes, it’s a toilet on an airplane
For this flight, the load was 9/12. It looked like there were a couple of other people on miles in the cabin as I wasn’t the only person excitedly snapping photos of the cabin.

First class menu

First class wine

Dom Perignon 2004 on offer
After takeoff, I was served Dom 2004 and some unsalted nuts. The stemware isn’t fancy, but I appreciate the 2004 vintage over the 2003 one. I like my nuts salted, though.

Obligatory Dom + nuts shot
Now, I’m not sure how much my VGML was affected by being catered out of Frankfurt instead of Bangkok, but it wasn’t good. Like this meal was some of the worst food I’ve had on a plane in any class of service. The first course was bread with vegetables on top. But not good bread or anything–just wonderbread-y bread with controversial vegetable choices.

VGML canapes
After the not-so-great canapes, I decided to partake in caviar service. I find it a little excessive that they serve each passenger his/her own bread basket.

Caviar
Up next was the worst food I’ve ever been served on a plane. If you can’t identify what’s on this plate, there’s extremely salty and soggy fried cauliflower, raw mushrooms, unidentifiable and disgusting mush, and artichokes. I tried to find something to like, but this was honestly terrible.

VGML appetizer. This was disgusting.
The VGML main course wasn’t much better. At least there was rice, which is hard to screw up. The rest of the plate was overcooked broccoli and carrots, way too many mushrooms, and a disturbing white sauce.

VGML main. Not much better.
After the pretty horrendous meal (I know, it’s my own fault for getting a VGML), I decided to skip dessert and just get my bed made. The seat didn’t seem to go completely lie flat, but it was still very comfortable. The bedding isn’t as nice as other carriers like Cathay or Lufthansa, but it’s still adequate, and better than carriers like Asiana.

Bed mode

More bed
After sleeping for a bit, I asked for a snack of the yellow noodles with roast pork and fresh fruit. The flight attendant proactively offered to make the noodles vegetarian, which I greatly appreciated. Asian noodles are hard to mess up, and this was pretty darn tasty. I should’ve just gotten this for my first meal service.

Mid-flight snack (tasty!)
For breakfast, I started off with fresh fruit, yogurt, and breads. Again, you get an entire bread basket to yourself, and I thought the almond twist in the basket was super duper tasty.

Breakfast
The VGML breakfast wasn’t great, but at least it wasn’t terrible like the dinner service. Potatoes, spinach, mushroom, tomato, and odd fried cake thingies. Not great, but at least edible.

VGML breakfast
As we got ready to land, a member of the crew went around the first class cabin and thanked each passenger for flying Thai and offered a deck of cards featuring the Thai A380. It was a nice token.
Yes, the dinner service was the worst meal I’ve ever had on an airplane, but the service on Thai is awesome. The hard product on the A380 is solid (as is the new hard product on their 747s, which I believe is all but one now), and I’ve been told that the normal Thai food on the menu is quite good. Overall, I’m a huge fan.