Bangkok and Other Airports - Your Recent Experience - Busy, OK or Quiet. Please Add your Experiences.

[Butch]

Heathrow Departures 04/10/23

Terminal 3

Dropped a mate off the other day. check in Emirates are using the kiosk method, located in area "F" (Closest to arrivals, far right of the T3 building as you look at it). plenty of staff on hand to help and super efficient and helpful. Hats off to the LHR staff working here. Just damn pleasant, honest men and women who are happy to help and are very patient.

Once bag tags have been obtained, it's over to bag drop. 2kg over weight but nothing happened.

Pre Entry / Security

They seem to be remodelling the pre entry area of T3, so nowhere to sit down and get a drink or any food. There's a Boots and WH Smith, but nothing else. If you want coffee then it's over to the arrivals area for the only coffee shop, otherwise into and through to Departure area.

Personally I think this stinks. T3 used to be briliant pre entry, it had a Burger King, 2 pubs, a coffee shop and even a Krispy Kreme. It's got bollockall now at the time of writing. I hope to see some improvements.

Security

Expect usual queues, worse at weekends but less than 20 minutes to get through, although specifically last week, it appeared enhanced security measures are being taken with extra checks and sniffer dogs.

Departure Area T 3

Usual LHR fayre, pay through the nose for poor quality food and drink, but not very busy at all at the time of writing. charging areas for phones, not all being used.

(I always take an empty water bottle with me when I fly, and fill it up from the numerous water fountains dotted about, rather than pay £2.80 for a 500ml bottle of water from the shops).

For the benefit of anyone concerned, LHR now has "inclusive toilets" instead of disabled ones. Designated by a wheelchair icon that designates disabled toilets. I'm all for inclusivity, but I think disabled people prefer to be identified as being less able than others, rather than given a new label from the left wing liberals to make them feel less bad about the fact they're less able.

My mate is disabled. He's got no legs. He still has to wear steel toecapped boots at work though. Can't work out why.

[Lemondropkid]

Landed into BKK at circa 16.00 on Thursday 5th October using EVA

The EVA landing spot was I'd guestimate 300 metres from Immigration, was the shortest walk I've ever had at Swampy. The flight was much better than my Thai airways experience in Jan. Food, service, seating, entertainment options and far free headphones all superior. Flew in Economy cabin.

Given how close we landed to immigration, I had a whole 1 person in front of me. Bags were ready reasonably promptly.

Ovearll impression on Thursday afternoon was Swampy was relatively quiet.

Overall an excellent experience.

[Horizondave]

Just reminded me that when I landed at BKK on Finnair (middle of September), we were situated at gate F2 and the walk to immigration was quite lengthy (made good use of the travelators). Luckily we were landing at 5.20 am and immigration was empty, maybe about 6 people in the queue ahead of me but then 2 more officers came on and I became number 2 in the queue. 

Then again, it isn't the length of the walk but the length of the queue and my last few trips have seen me through immigration quickly, nearly always have to wait for my bags though.

Edited October 7, 2023 by Horizondave

[Phantom51red]

12 hours ago, Lemondropkid said:

Landed into BKK at circa 16.00 on Thursday 5th October using EVA

The EVA landing spot was I'd guestimate 300 metres from Immigration, was the shortest walk I've ever had at Swampy. The flight was much better than my Thai airways experience in Jan. Food, service, seating, entertainment options and far free headphones all superior. Flew in Economy cabin.

Given how close we landed to immigration, I had a whole 1 person in front of me. Bags were ready reasonably promptly.

Ovearll impression on Thursday afternoon was Swampy was relatively quiet.

Overall an excellent experience.

Sounds pretty perfect,hope it's the same near end of the month,be landing about same time.

[rhodie]

Landed Friday morning 6th Oct at 8 am at Swampy. About a 1 km walk to immigration. Walked straight up to a booth and there were a few others with no queue. Quietest I've ever seen. 

Edited October 8, 2023 by rhodie
Destination

[Sherlock]

On 10/6/2023 at 10:29 PM, Butch said:

Heathrow Departures 04/10/23

Terminal 3

Dropped a mate off the other day. check in Emirates are using the kiosk method, located in area "F" (Closest to arrivals, far right of the T3 building as you look at it). plenty of staff on hand to help and super efficient and helpful. Hats off to the LHR staff working here. Just damn pleasant, honest men and women who are happy to help and are very patient.

Once bag tags have been obtained, it's over to bag drop. 2kg over weight but nothing happened.

Pre Entry / Security

They seem to be remodelling the pre entry area of T3, so nowhere to sit down and get a drink or any food. There's a Boots and WH Smith, but nothing else. If you want coffee then it's over to the arrivals area for the only coffee shop, otherwise into and through to Departure area.

Personally I think this stinks. T3 used to be briliant pre entry, it had a Burger King, 2 pubs, a coffee shop and even a Krispy Kreme. It's got bollockall now at the time of writing. I hope to see some improvements.

Security

Expect usual queues, worse at weekends but less than 20 minutes to get through, although specifically last week, it appeared enhanced security measures are being taken with extra checks and sniffer dogs.

Departure Area T 3

Usual LHR fayre, pay through the nose for poor quality food and drink, but not very busy at all at the time of writing. charging areas for phones, not all being used.

(I always take an empty water bottle with me when I fly, and fill it up from the numerous water fountains dotted about, rather than pay £2.80 for a 500ml bottle of water from the shops).

For the benefit of anyone concerned, LHR now has "inclusive toilets" instead of disabled ones. Designated by a wheelchair icon that designates disabled toilets. I'm all for inclusivity, but I think disabled people prefer to be identified as being less able than others, rather than given a new label from the left wing liberals to make them feel less bad about the fact they're less able.

My mate is disabled. He's got no legs. He still has to wear steel toecapped boots at work though. Can't work out why.

Pretty sure that the Oceanic Bar is still open, (Thats a landslide pub)and that is a big pub! To the left hand side of the Virgin lounge and Costa Coffee. To be fair, it is actually pretty well hidden away.

[Butch]

3 hours ago, Sherlock said:

Pretty sure that the Oceanic Bar is still open, (Thats a landslide pub)and that is a big pub! To the left hand side of the Virgin lounge and Costa Coffee. To be fair, it is actually pretty well hidden away.

Mate to be honest we came from the escalators opposite Boots and turned right. It seemed that as you walk to departures there are hoardings which funnel you into Security. Where the Escalators were (are) which led you up from the Virgin check in desks, it appeared to be all blocked off, at least from our direction. Then again, I wasn't paying that much attention!. I was just a bit annoyed and shocked at nothing nearby being available.

If Oceanic is open then that's a bonus and worth noting. hopefully the other improvements will soon be finished. I'm due for a pickup in a couple of weeks so will give a full report and have a shufti around , hopefully report back with some better news !! 🙂

[Aqualung]

Well, hopefully I'll be at Swampy in less than 48 hours. Supposed to be landing around 6. 30 am Thai time so hopefully it will be very quiet. 

[Butch]

14 minutes ago, Aqualung said:

Well, hopefully I'll be at Swampy in less than 48 hours. Supposed to be landing around 6. 30 am Thai time so hopefully it will be very quiet. 

Safe flight mate. With a bit of luck you'll be thru immigration and supping a nice cold beer within no time.

[Aqualung]

Perfect flight from CPH to Swampy. 

Landed on time and just in time for the perfect thunderstorm! 

That delayed the baggage belt for nearly 30 minutes. Plenty of folks about at 6 am but immigration was relatively quiet. 

The taxi trip to Don Mueang was not..... Nothing changes there. 

Anyways, happy to be here for my first trip during the wet season.... Didn't expect it to be so so humid. Knackered now and a first for.... I'll be in bed before 10 pm tonight. 

Im turning into a lightweight I reckon. 

[Lemondropkid]

1 hour ago, Aqualung said:

Landed on time and just in time for the perfect thunderstorm

Woke up to that this morning,  was going on and off from around 7pm the previous day.

Hate to imagine what that would do to wait times at Heathrow. 

Amazing how the Thai's adapt, compared to us with a little winter snow!!

 

[CalEden]

Arrived from Manila Monday 4:20PM all Immigration Booths queued up with one person waiting, and it took 5 minutes to get through immigration.  

[Butch]

LHR Terminal 3 Arrivals / Departures Update

Departures Pre Entry / Security

I was misteken in my earlier post when I said in departures pre entry there was nowhere to eat, as @Sherlockcorrectly said  Oceanic is still open, along with the large Pret A Manger, which are on the far left, upstairs area of the Terminal as you look at it. Last visit, I couldn't see (as shown in the pics) as we approached from the opposite direction and from upstairs, thus it was all hidden by hoardings !!

Nice purple lights at LHR T3

View from top of the escalator in the "Virgin" area of the Terminal.

Turn left and walk a bit, here's Oceanic and Pret

 

Coming from the other direction (all other check in desks), this is what you see from the top of the escalators, hence my confusion in my initial post.

op

opposite direction from above

OK that's cleared that up, there ARE areas to eat in pre entry at LHR T3

Arrivals:

Plane landed at 07:03, de planed and through immigration by 07:35. Queues not too bad, Emirates gate not far from the Immigration area, unlike EVA. All E Gates functioning correctly.

Baggage Claim:

Priority Bags already coming off the carousel soon followed by regular luggage. straight thru customs.

Arrivals area

Was busy, even at 0730 am, queue for the lifts upstairs, then another queue for the car park lifts. Left LHR at 0808. Not bad, so effectively 1 hour from landing to leaving the Car park. Marks and Spencers open, WH Smith open, Phone place open, Coffee shop open but busy.

 

 

[Sherlock]

This may or may not have happened to others in the past, but it was a situation (with regards to immigration controls) I found myself in back in August.

So flew on SWISS from LHR via Zurich on my way to Krakow. Transferring in Zurich is so easy. Landed in Krakow and parked off stand, so we were bussed in to the terminal and right into the baggage claim area. Now, the ZRH to KRK flight is classified as a Schengen flight, so no border controls in Krakow! (so I didnt get stamped into Poland or the EU).

Week later left Krakow to fly to Munich on Lufthansa. Once again, another Schengen flight and no border controls, as once again parked off stand and bussed straight into baggage claim!

5 days later, I flew home back to Heathrow from Munich on Lufthansa. So check in, clear security, and rock up at the immigration counters. The very nice gentlemen then asked me why no stamps, which I explained to him. He did take me to a very nice office with other police officers, and then was questioned by them for the next 1.5 hours as to why I wasn't stamped in anywhere! Showed them all e-tickets for flights and hotels and pleaded for my life. Queue a number of phone calls later and after a coffee and a few danish that they bought me, they sent me on my way, with no entry or exit stamps in my passport.

During the questioning, a Lufthansa employee gave me my luggage back, and then afterwards re-issused me with a new boarding card for a later LHR flight!

Brexit has really screwed things up for British passport holders!

[Stillearly]

No separate check in for EVA premium at Heathrow ( other airlines did ... )  so queuing to check in took about 45 mins , security was okay maybe 10 mins ✅

[Stillearly]

4 hours ago, Sherlock said:

 

Brexit has really screwed things up for British passport holders!

But at least they are Blue ... 🇬🇧

😜😜😜

[Sherlock]

16 minutes ago, Stillearly said:

But at least they are Blue ... 🇬🇧

😜😜😜

True.

[boydeste]

37 minutes ago, Stillearly said:

No separate check in for EVA premium at Heathrow ( other airlines did ... )  so queuing to check in took about 45 mins , security was okay maybe 10 mins ✅

I check in at business when flying premium, never been refused yet.

[Stillearly]

4 minutes ago, boydeste said:

I check in at business when flying premium, never been refused yet.

They had people checking tickets before you could go in the Business queue ...

[boydeste]

1 minute ago, Stillearly said:

They had people checking tickets before you could go in the Business queue ...

Maybe because I am Silver card status, no idea. There used to be a premium check in around the back of the current ones, but that is long gone now.

At least you got through quick enough. 

[Stillearly]

20 minutes ago, boydeste said:

Maybe because I am Silver card status, no idea. There used to be a premium check in around the back of the current ones, but that is long gone now.

At least you got through quick enough. 

Business line is only for Gold members ( meant to be anyway 😉 ) 

I'm Silver as well , so got the lounge access ✅

45 mins wasn't too bad 

[boydeste]

Just now, Stillearly said:

Business line is only for Gold members ( meant to be anyway 😉 ) 

I'm Silver as well , so got the lounge access ✅

45 mins wasn't too bad 

Which lounge are they using now?

[boydeste]

11 minutes ago, Stillearly said:

Business line is only for Gold members ( meant to be anyway 😉 ) 

I'm Silver as well , so got the lounge access ✅

45 mins wasn't too bad 

Also the plane left bkk 40 minutes late and doesn't look to have arrived yet. Due any time soon.

Hopefully it will be turned around on time.

I think I can hear it flying overhead now in Central France. 🤣

Edited October 23, 2023 by boydeste

[Stillearly]

2 minutes ago, boydeste said:

Also the plane left bkk 40 minutes late and doesn't look to have arrived yet. Due any time soon.

Hopefully it will be turned around on time.

Already been told we are delayed.. , no gate yet , hopefully will make time up in the air .. 

[Stillearly]

12 minutes ago, boydeste said:

Which lounge are they using now?

Lufthansa 

said hello to another BM who was in there 👍