THAI Smile lifts standard of in-flight service

[snoop1130]

THAI Smile lifts standard of in-flight service

By The Nation

 

 

Newly created international breakfast menu and eco-friendly packaging to be first introduced on flights to India  

 

THAI Smile Airways is working on a plan to improve in-flight service and adjust to perfection with more attention to detail, according to its press statement.

 

As part of this, the carrier is introducing a wholly new range of hot snack for breakfast on domestic flights. It includes up to 24 international recipes, plus a selection of 22 special recipes on Bangkok–Narathiwat and Chiang Mai–Phuket flights.

 

More than 22 new exclusive inflight meals will also be served on short-haul international flights. The offer will be onboard from November 2018.

 

Additionally, THAI Smile is bringing a revolutionary change to premium in-flight service with the introduction of authentic recipes meticulously created by culinary gurus, in conjunction with the recent shift to new paper packaging in an attempt to reduce plastic use.

 

Starting from September 16 this year, on flights to India all meal boxes can be transformed into space-saving trays, illustrating THAI Smile’s corporate focus on providing superior in-flight experience, going beyond expectations and ensuring optimum satisfaction, the statement revealed.

 

“The change in our inflight service is to welcome the seventh year of our smile-filled operation and our tireless effort to enhance airline passenger’s inflight experience,” said Nednapang Teeravas, chief customer services officer of THAI Smile Airways.

 

“Hot snacks for breakfast are all internationalized with more variety. These will be available on flights departing before 9.30 am, starting November this year. 

 

The newly created hot snacks for Smile Class (economy class) passengers on domestic flights come with new packaging design, representing fun and fusion while intentionally maintaining authentic elements of local dishes.

 

The 24 new hot snacks vary from Japanese cuisine such as Yaki-Imo (baked Japanese sweet potatoes), Tamagoyaki with cheese or sweet eggs, Okonomiyaki and Kushikatsu, to popular Korean dishes like Kimchi Fried Rice, western food like Spaghetti with Mushroom Cream Sauce and Thai food including Fried Vermicelli with Chayote. A selection of Chinese dishes is also available. To meet the culinary needs of Muslim passengers, all food ingredients are halal. Menu items are rotated throughout the year to provide passengers with variety and to coincide with seasonal freshness.

 

To make passenger experience more special, new 22 recipes have been created for those flying on Bangkok–Narathiwat and Chiang Mai–Phuket flights. These include, for instance, Spaghetti with Spicy Chicken and Rice Topped with Stir Fried Chicken with Holy Basil (Kao Pad Ka Prao Kai), of which the taste has been adjusted to be more pleasant and appealing to Thai passengers. Sandwiches are still served on flights departing after 9.30 am, but these will become colourful with the use of high-quality bread flour made from natural ingredients. It reflects the airline’s commitment to offering healthy inflight meals with the fusion of taste and style. 

 

All exclusive recipes for 11 festivals will continue to be available onboard with greater effort to work closely with the airline’s long-standing partners to make its in-flight meals more attractive and delicious, giving passengers something beyond their expectations of what inflight service could look like.

 

On short-haul international flights to Siem Reap, Phnom Penh, Luang Prabang and Yangon, passengers will enjoy a whole new range of 22 inflight menu items, from western food like Spaghetti with Chicken and Tomato-Sweet Basil Source and Salmon Pie, to Thai dishes like Chicken Pad Thai, which are created especially to make their journey more memorable.

 

“Creating the latest inflight menu items is not an easy task. We worked closely with outsource suppliers and air caterers specializing in food research and recipe development to ensure high standards. The manufacturing and cooking process also needs to be qualified to achieve quality and palatability so that passengers feel like they are almost eating meals at some good restaurants on the ground level,” said the Chief Customer Services Officer.

 

Moreover, THAI Smile is writing a new chapter for in-flight service with the latest development and value added to hot snacks on flights to India.

 

Apart from selecting premium food ingredients, inflight communication with passengers rides on the theme, Original India, with the help of Indian food specialists creating a variety of Vegetarian Jain Meal (VJML) items that are truly palatable to Indian passengers.

 

Serving size is bigger and there are more options for Thai curry recipes such as Chicken Green Curry and Chicken Paneang along with a wide selection of Indian-style desserts.

 

In addition to the improvement in inflight culinary experience, THAI Smile is actively responding to the “go green” initiative, to which airlines around the world are increasingly giving importance. As part of this, it has changed inflight food service tradition by shifting to paper packaging as much as possible instead of using conventional plastic items.

 

One highlighted feature of the new packaging is that it comes available in a box shape when being loaded onto aircraft, and then can be transformed into a food tray before being served to passengers. Food warming onboard can be safer as the airline has substituted eco-friendly paper for aluminium foil. Plastic waste bags are now removed from all its flights and replaced with a biodegradable alternative.

 

“This major change took effect on 16 September, starting with flights to India. We expect Indian passengers will be impressed with our in-flight menu and satisfied with the touch of India they are familiar with. The change in packaging brings not only style and excitement but also the commitment of THAI Smile to tangible reduction of plastic use. This also enables effective space saving that leads to greater efficiency of aircraft space management, and therefore we are able to make the most of space available for more inflight offers. Moreover, advanced technology for food and packaging enables us to reduce costs while maintaining high quality of inflight service we deliver to customers fleet-wide. We plan to use case studies on our flights to India as a guideline for further service enhancement in other international routes.”

 

“With our passion to maintain service excellence and commitment to providing customers with the best possible service at every touch point, we are trying tirelessly to create superior travel experience for passengers on all THAI Smile flights. The recent change demonstrates the unique brand personality of THAI Smile as a full-service airline giving attention to every detail with added value and differentiation that put a smile on every passenger’s face and flight. We will continue to develop and improve both tangible elements like food and intangible parts, including the service attitude and passion of our cabin crews. We expect to find ways to meet and exceed passenger expectations,” said Nednapang.

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/breakingnews/30354899

 

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2018-9-20

       

[jaiyen]

I thought Thai Airways were trying to save money and now they are splashing out on luxury meals on short haul flights !

[Sydebolle]

Some weeks ago en route to Udon Thani I took Thai Smile as the fare difference between TG2006 and WE006 was 3:1. 

The "food" was crap; I mean, since when are sandwiches baked with "Bébe bleu" flour and yes, it tasted the way it looked. The crew enlightened me that it would be potato salad and chicken breast, between light blue layers that is! 

To top it off, the waste produced with this in(cr)edible "snack" is scary. A four-colored printed hard-paper bag with textile handle strings, a similarly colored cardboard box (containing a cling-rapped light blue sandwich) and a bottle of RO-water specially bottled and separately labelled by Chang beer. Nothing gets recycled as everything lands in the same plastic garbage bag. 

In all fairness, what happened to the plain paper cups and the plastic jugs of ice water? A proper sandwich, wrapped in cling-wrap would do as well. And yes, the crew would have had plenty of time for all this. Alternatively just offer drinking water, even in Thailand people could go without any kind of food for an hour. 

[khunPer]

16 minutes ago, Sydebolle said:

...even in Thailand people could go without any kind of food for an hour.

I'm not sure a Thai lady would agree in that, counting also check-in time and waiting for luggage; it's long time, too long time, without food – Thai-way-of-thinking...?

 

On the other hand, in the weird farang-way-of thinking, I fully agree in your post...?

[Kadilo]

Some weeks ago en route to Udon Thani I took Thai Smile as the fare difference between TG2006 and WE006 was 3:1. 

The "food" was crap; I mean, since when are sandwiches baked with "Bébe bleu" flour and yes, it tasted the way it looked. The crew enlightened me that it would be potato salad and chicken breast, between light blue layers that is! 

To top it off, the waste produced with this in(cr)edible "snack" is scary. A four-colored printed hard-paper bag with textile handle strings, a similarly colored cardboard box (containing a cling-rapped light blue sandwich) and a bottle of RO-water specially bottled and separately labelled by Chang beer. Nothing gets recycled as everything lands in the same plastic garbage bag. 

In all fairness, what happened to the plain paper cups and the plastic jugs of ice water? A proper sandwich, wrapped in cling-wrap would do as well. And yes, the crew would have had plenty of time for all this. Alternatively just offer drinking water, even in Thailand people could go without any kind of food for an hour. 

No pleasing some people. It’s dirt cheap, usually around 2000 return. They give you a free snack, sometimes a sandwich sometimes a hot wrap, free coffee, bottle of water and all in a 50 odd minute flight.

And you’re still complaining.......if you don’t like it give it to the Thai sitting next to you, they will appreciate it.




Sent from my iPad using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

[Sydebolle]

11 hours ago, Kadilo said:

No pleasing some people. It’s dirt cheap, usually around 2000 return. They give you a free snack, sometimes a sandwich sometimes a hot wrap, free coffee, bottle of water and all in a 50 odd minute flight.

And you’re still complaining.......if you don’t like it give it to the Thai sitting next to you, they will appreciate it.




Sent from my iPad using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

Of less understandable nature is and remains the tremendous pile of garbage these "snacks" create. On the following flights I just refused with a smile wondering, if they offered me the same little bag twice - as a subsequence? 

[arithai12]

2 hours ago, Sydebolle said:

Of less understandable nature is and remains the tremendous pile of garbage these "snacks" create. On the following flights I just refused with a smile wondering, if they offered me the same little bag twice - as a subsequence? 

I see a plastic bottle (how would you like your water instead? emirates gives glass bottles in business, that's ecology for you just add a zero to the airfare), and a plastic wrapping (perhaps you can mention an airline which doesn't wrap their food?). The rest is paper which as far as we know might get recycled.

I drink the water and take the bottle home to be used many more times, eg when I go exercising.

I wouldn't have a problem if I were offered an untouched bag of food from a previous flight.

 

[theguyfromanotherforum]

I like all 3 of them

[rodney earl]

And all of their meat is halal (they cut their throat and let the animal bleed to death.)

[Vacuum]

6 hours ago, arithai12 said:

emirates gives glass bottles in business

Could be used as a weapon, if someone goes berserk or get hijacking ideas.

Edited September 22, 2018 by Vacuum

[Sydebolle]

9 hours ago, arithai12 said:

I see a plastic bottle (how would you like your water instead? emirates gives glass bottles in business, that's ecology for you just add a zero to the airfare), and a plastic wrapping (perhaps you can mention an airline which doesn't wrap their food?). The rest is paper which as far as we know might get recycled.

I drink the water and take the bottle home to be used many more times, eg when I go exercising.

I wouldn't have a problem if I were offered an untouched bag of food from a previous flight.

 

Paper or plastic cup, crew pouring water during the flight, cups are collected - recycled. Plastic wrapper not an issue, the paper "rest" is not recyclable unless you have people sorting plastic spoons, alu foil wrappers of refreshment towels, paper, textile (strings to hold the bag) - go figure! 

 

[Nemises]

My usual ThaiSmile meal and pre-take off refreshment (pointy end). Sorry to hear some of you blokes down the back aren’t happy.

[Kadilo]

2 minutes ago, Nemises said:

My usual ThaiSmile meal and pre-take off refreshment (pointy end). Sorry to hear some of you blokes down the back aren’t happy.

Im down the back and more than happy with the service I get from TS. 

I wish all budget airlines were as good these. Can’t fault them in any way shape or form and never use anyone else for my short trips. 

[NanLaew]

7 hours ago, rodney earl said:

And all of their meat is halal (they cut their throat and let the animal bleed to death.)

How does that work in a sandwich?

[NanLaew]

5 hours ago, Sydebolle said:

...the paper "rest" is not recyclable unless you have people sorting plastic spoons, alu foil wrappers of refreshment towels, paper, textile

Perhaps they do? That's part of recycling, no?

 

At the 'front-end', on the plane, everything has a recycle label so it goes in the one bin. When it gets offloaded and sent to the, wait for it... the recycling plant, that's where it's separated and sorted.

 

 

Or maybe you want color coded wheelie bins to be running up and down the aisle of a 50 minute flight?

 

 

Personally, I don't care what they serve blue sandwiches or phad krapao for snacks but I would like one more inch on the seat pitch, that's all I ask.

 

Edited September 22, 2018 by NanLaew

[Nemises]

...but I would like one more inch on the seat pitch, that's all I ask.

 

 

 

“You only get what you pay for” - as the saying goes.

 

I pay more to get this seat pitch.

 

[rodney earl]

A sandwich or a meal, it does not matter. All of the meat used by them is halal meat (throat cut and let bleed to death.)

[rodney earl]

Glass or plastic. I still will not be flying with them.!!

[Kadilo]

12 minutes ago, rodney earl said:

Glass or plastic. I still will not be flying with them.!!

I’m sure they will get over it. 

[NanLaew]

17 hours ago, Nemises said:

 

“You only get what you pay for” - as the saying goes.

 

I pay more to get this seat pitch.

 

Ah yes, the game of making one pay more for a non-reclining seat with fixed armrests.

 

I am an infrequent LCC pax so I bite the bullet with AirAsia, Nok and Lion. I have been lucky in getting re-assigned to the exit row at check in for THAI and THAI Smile since these seats are blocked in the online booking experience.

 

It would be nice to have a minimum 33" pitch but I can live with 32" for a 1 hour bus ride.

 

I read a review of AirAsia X where the author wrote, "The Standard seats come with a fairly generous pitch of 31" which gives a bit more legroom."  From this I can only assume that the author is a dwarf vertically challenged.

 

[NanLaew]

3 hours ago, rodney earl said:

A sandwich or a meal, it does not matter. All of the meat used by them is halal meat (throat cut and let bleed to death.)

How does that work with a salad?

[rodney earl]

Glass or plastic. I still will not be flying with them.!! Dah. You dont get meat with a salad.!!