rheinwiese

On Tuesday March 13th I flew to Hong Kong by Air Asia on their 6.30 am flight. I arrived at the airport at 4.00 am.

Some observations:

1 Air Asia check in is a horrendous experience in Bangkok even if you use their web check in service. You still have to queue.

2 Check in took 40 minutes even though I had no bags.

3 Presented myself at Immigration to find 2 Booths open - that is correct 2 Booths. The line queue was long and some Indian passengers - who are never known for their timeliness (lived there for 3 years) - were threatening a riot as I guess they were going to miss their flight.

4 After 20 minutes and a load of grumbling from other passengers, 2 more Booths were opened. I cleared Immigration in 40 minutes, one of the longest waits I have experienced. All I know that if you started grumbling at Heathrow, you would get a very firm reprimand from stern faced apparatnik.

Now I do not criticize Thailand. I like living here. I left England for other reasons in how Britain is governed which are far worse than the problems that I experience here so I am grateful, believe me. However, moving AirAsia from Suvarnabhum is extremely unhelpful given the relative lack of transport links at DM.

This may be the final push to get me to relocate to Hong Kong (sighs) as travelling from and to the SAR is a delight as everything works smoothly. As a frequent traveller, using the overpriced services of the other airlines on offer is not an attractive proposition.

Seems that they have started to do something or perhaps I was just lucky:

Flew Air Asia to Singapore yesterday.

Checked in 8:15am, no bags, drop-off counter. Time 2min

Immigration: new queuing procedure (like KL and SIN), all booth staffed, through in 10min

Came back at 7pm:

same new queuing procedure, only 30% of the booths staffed, but very lucky to get through in 15 min before some wide bodies landed.

All in all a smooth sail.

It is about time that Taxi tariffs went up. They are fixed on 35 baht for 20 years. All people complaining about the increase need to be cut 50% on their salary and that is only for inflation. Taxi drivers have seen their car rent go up, petrol prices rise dramatically and their cost of living. Without a decent fee, taxi rides will stay dangerous and attract the wrong kind of drivers, who have to work far too long hours to avoid accidents. The drivers would have deserved at the very least a doubling of their tariffs.

The last taxi fare increase in BKK was in July 2008.

The rise was 12% from the previous fare which had been in effect since 1992.

http://www.nationmul...al_30075874.php

As far as I recall it took more than 6 months to adjust all the meters.

IMO best value for money: The Davis Hotel Suk 24

Check latestays and wotif for best rates.

Perhaps K. Chuwit will greet you personally

prepare lots of $$$ guys:

Costs of hosting an F1 GP

1). building an F1 spec race track costs anywhere between U$ 250-300 million.

2) “hosting fees” payable to Formula One Management (Bernie Ecclestone): average of U$ 29 million per year.

Pipe dream. Russia is looking to get a race likely in 2014. South Africa is also waiting, and there’s talk of a 2nd Indian F1 track.

But an excellent opportunity to clock some taxpayer funded frequent flyer milage for the Thai big wigs and their entourage.

Welfare system?? Comprehensive assistance? Who is going to pay for it if only 6% of the workforce pays taxes.

Dream on.

If they want to help ease traffic matters they should reduce the number of taxis. There are an extimated 70,000 taxis in a city that only requires about half that number. Another thing would be for the taxi driver to accept all fares who flag them. I am fed up with the crap of taxi drivers telling me they do not or will not go where I want to go. Failure to accept a fare should result in hack licenxse revocation. Now, why won't this ever happen? The taxi mafia.

Let them go blow smoke up someone else's ass.

Make that more than 100.000 according to BK Magazine recently.

And these are only the registered cabs.

Seems that all those photo-ops are doing the trick

PR machinery at work.

Appearance over substance. Classic.

This morning I passed the xray into CentralWorld.

Although I set off a beep, the sec guard didn't even bat an eye.

He was too busy with his mobile phone.

You mean like "la coste" and "crocodile " brands they are not the same are they.? Crocodile is a Thai brand for sure.

Sorry to disappoint:

Crocodile is a Hong Kong company called Crocodile Garments founded in 1952.

so be extra careful if you drive or walk in this area

So young...so very sad. RIP and condolences to the families

Stupid, Stupid, Stupid. Just another way to buy votes and jam bandwidth with the dam_n kids playing games.

And the kicker is....we all (the taxpayers) are funding it. PTP vote buying in disguise using state coffers.

Under JAA operations, the cut-off duty time, requiring a change from a 2 pilot crew to a 3 or 4 pilot crew, will depend on:

The length of the crew's previous rest

Whether the crew are acclimatized to local time or not

How many sectors the crew plan to operate

What local time of day the crew report time is

Whether bunks, or just seats, are available on board to the crew for inflight rest

Under JAR-OPS, the duty time required to trigger a change from:

2 crew to 3 crew can vary from 9:00 to 10:45

3 crew to 4 crew can vary from 9:45 to 14:00

The 4 crew duty limit is currently 18:00

I suppose the TG flight to Japan and Korea are operated without layover, hence the pilots are facing a duty time of up to 13 hours.

You do the math.

FYI: e.g. Cathay Pacific operates its flights from the UK, GER, Fr etc with a 4-pilot cockpit

CP conglomerate enjoys a near-monopoly position on a large series of consumer products.

Calling for higher wages in the sector when you are the leader will hit your competitors (lower profitability with similar process) harder than you and may reinforce your position in the long run.

If this is the reason, we are far from the big heart humanism we may see in it.

Finally somebody get's the drift. Thanks

Would be interesting to know what the highest sec level is? 10, 20.........

it's ground hog day again to TAT stats

PM Yingluck brushes aside worries over terror attack plan in Thailand

. The PM has also instructed Deputy Prime Minister, Police Captain Chalerm Yubumrung, and National Police Chief, Pol Gen Priewpan Damapong, to follow up on the issue and report back within 24 hours.

tbh this whole thing sounds like intergovernemental warnings where being ignored and the US decided to step things up by making the public aware, the above statement looks to me like the PM's response is more like a knee jerk attempt on action that was up to now being ignored by this incompetent administration.

In my opinion there is a lot more going on here behind the scenes and I would not take any of this lightly

exactly my thoughts!

No scooter rentals at the ferry piers.

Get a Song Taew (pickup truck taxi) and head south to White Sand Beach, Lonely Beach or Bang Bao.

Find an accomodation and then rent a scooter.

As earlier mentioned it's always a good idea to keep a copies of your passport when you travel.

MAYBE THEY ARE UPDATING THE CELLSITE.. MAYBE A DRUNK DRIVER HAS DRIVEN IN TO THE CELLSITE...

other than that dunno.. mine is working but i'm the other side of bkk from you

Perhaps you are right. Updates.....sigh

The signal strength indicator switches between standard bars and a 3G thingy.

Going on for an hour now

BKK Bangchak

If calling out the display posts "no network coverage".

And cannot receive calls as well.

Anyone else?

A 380 in Phuket?

Ain't gonna happen unless they rebuilt the entire airport.

Even if they extend the runway, this bird is simply too big to serve such a small, narrow and single-runway airport

Some examples of the works that airports may need to carry out before the A380 enters service

-Runway width of 60m (currently 37.50m in HKT)

-Separation distances between runways, taxiways and nearest obstacles must meet the international norms specified for A380 operations.

-Other modification works will include the widening of runway shoulders as well as runway-taxiway and taxiway-taxiway intersections on each side to allow the A380 aircraft to operate safely.

-The aircraft pavements at runway-taxiway and taxiway-taxiway intersections must be widened to allow pilots to manoeuvre the aircraft safely at the turns.

-As the A380 aircraft is wider and heavier than the Boeing 747-400 the airfield must be modified to the design requirements of the ICAO for Code F aircraft.

-Gate holdrooms must be modified to accommodate larger number of passengers.

-Baggage claim carousels serving A380 flights must be extended to accommodate more luggage.

-The airport needs to adapt their airside infrastructure. Upgrading runways, and taxiways, relocating taxiways and even relocating aircraft stands and buildings to provide sufficient wingtip clearance, are examples of the works that airports may need to carry out before the A380 enters service.

Their terms and conditions read - quote

This Contest and these Terms and Conditions shall be governed by the laws of Singapore without regard to the conflict of laws. Each contestant irrevocably submits to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the Singapore courts.

Have I missed a momentous occasion in Thai-Singapore relations that BMA is now run from Singapore? That might explain a lot!

The Thai habit of copy and paste comes to mind.

Just forgot to replace Singapore with Thailand.

Finally they let the cat out of the bag and show their true colors.

What was PTP's top priority again: reconciliation???

Best of luck to Thailand. You're goin to need it.