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Flight Review: Thai Smile – Bangkok (BKK) to Surat Thani

March 8, 2016 By James Clark

Flight: Thai Smile WE 251
From: Bangkok (BKK) To: Surat Thai (URT)

Flight Review: Thai Smile – Bangkok (BKK) to Surat Thani

I flew with Thai Smile from Bangkok to Surat Thani. Surat Thani is in the south of Thailand and is the gateway airport for the gulf islands of Koh Samui and Koh Phangan (my eventual destination). There is an airport on Samui but it is privately owned and the airport charges are expensive compared to government airports. There are a number of airlines flying this route and I picked Thai Smile because it flies out of Bangkok BKK (Suvarnabhumi Airport), and I also wanted to try a new airline.

Thai Smile

Thai Smile is a wholly owned subsidiary of Thai Airways. It began operations in July 2012 to function as a quasi low cost airline. I say quasi because it is cheaper than regular Thai Airways flights yet it still offers most of the perks of its parent airline.

For example checked bags are free, seat selection is free, and there is also a free meal/snack.

Thai Smile benefits

I checked in online the day before and made my seat selection.

Online seat selection

I like to check in online to try and get a preferred seat, and the queue for online check in is almost always smaller than the queue for those who haven’t checked in. In this case there was one person in front of me compared to a queue that was snaking its way around the ropes in the check in queue.

Thai Smile online check in queue

Even though the aircraft paint-job looks like a Thai Airways airplane with an extra sash painted on it, the airlines have separate identities. They have different IATA codes (Thai Aiways TG, Thai Smile WE) and different inflight magazines.

We Smile - Thai Smile inflight magazine

I was on a morning flight so a light breakfast snack was served.

Breakfast Pack

The breakfast was a hot vegetable and cheese stromboli sandwich.

Vegetable cheese stromboli sandwich

The service also includes a free coffee/tea or juice.

Coffee

Overall it was a good flight and I was happy to get a cheap flight that departed out of BKK airport. I had only recently flown with Thai Airways from Bangkok to Chiang Mai, and there wasn’t a lot of difference in the product (the Thai Smile flight had a better sandwich!) The only difference was that I couldn’t earn points on my United Star Alliance account with Thai Smile, though you can earn points if you have the Thai frequent flyer account.

This makes me wonder why even bother setting up a new airline in the first place if it’s not that different.

Filed Under: Flight Review Tagged With: bangkok, surat thani, thai smile, thailand

About James Clark

James Clark is the founder of Nomadic Notes. He has been a digital nomad since 2003, and Nomadic Notes features trip reports, train travel articles, and where to stay guides. He writes about transport and urban development at Future Southeast Asia. Subscribe to the weekly travel newsletter.

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James Clark from Nomadic Notes

Hi, I’m James Clark, and I've been travelling the world since 2003 while running a location independent travel business. Nomadic Notes is a travel blog featuring travel guides and notes from my travels.

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