Thanks to the incoming flight arriving a touch late due to fog in the Kathmandu Valley, and for the Thai staff at Kathmandu Tribhuvan (airport KTM) keeping check-in open late for us (while we travelled to KTM on a fog-delayed domestic flight), we only just made this flight by the skin of our teeth!

We checked in at 13:15 for this 13:55 flight and our boarding cards said boarding was at 13:15!  We dashed upstairs towards the gate, to find an enormous queue for passport control. There are big queues at KTM for everything.  We jumped the queue, courtesy of a kind Japanese couple and found that the Thai Business lounge was just the other side of passport control, so we popped in the check our flight’s status and were told it had a small delay, to make ourselves comfortable and we would be told when to board.  Finally we could relax – we were going to get this flight.  But the Thai lounge wasn’t too conducive to getting ‘comfortable’: it was quite small, with brown wood laminate walls and no windows. Some ‘hospital waiting room’ type chairs surround low level cocktail tables in a crowded and regimented layout. There was a very small food area, but it had all been eaten!  I took a beer from the small, lightly stocked self-serve bar.  2.5/10

Unusually at KTM, Thai Airways has its own lounge. Just about all the other international airlines flying into KTM use the ‘Executive Lounge’ next door. And as that lounge is also the one used by Priority Pass, a card I now have, I decided to pop in to see if it was any better. It was. So we moved lounges.

The Executive Lounge was about three times the size, with windows and views of the apron, much more comfortable seating, a staffed bar and a better selection of foodstuffs.  We used the (clean) toilets and had a G&T and waited until we were told our flight was boarding. 6/10

There was a final queue to conquer, for security, and then a three minute walk to Gate 5. At the gate were were allowed to walk across the apron to board the plane immediately, as everyone else was already onboard.  There was a lovely warm greeting of “sawasdee ka” from the cabin crew around the doorway and when we were shown to our seats. I was in seat 12K, a window seat confusingly on the second row.  Singapore Airlines also start their babies at row 11, I’ve no clear idea why.

The aircraft operating was Boeing 777-200ER, registration HS-TJR, the largest aircraft type to fly into and out of KTM.  The business cabin, or ‘Royal Silk’ cabin, as Thai call their pointy end product, looked airy and spacious, but it had an old-fashioned hard product of angle-flat seats in a 2-2-2 configuration.  But that was just fine for a three hour regional flight.  Before take-off we were given a glass of Veuve Cliquot and invited to select our lunch order.  The B777 took off just 35 minutes behind schedule, at 14:30 and climbed steeply doing a 180 degree turn, to get out of the Kathmandu Valley and its dusty pollution below us.

Food was tolerable, but nothing to shut about; it was the Veuve that saw us through the short flight.  The Flight Attendants were all very good – professional but warm, and we landed at Bangkok close to schedule at 18:40. But, sadly, despite lots of airbridges being available (at Thai’s home base) we parked up off stand and had to get a bus to the terminal building.  Baggage delivery was reasonably timely, after a short queue at fast track immigration; our bags were actually first on the belt, which doesn’t happen often.

The fare was NPR47331, roughly US$470, each, which is very good value for a medium-haul international standard business class.  I can excuse them not spending a lot on their lounge!

Overall score 8/10