Flying to Phuket
Last Sunday’s crash landing of a One-Two-Go aircraft in Phuket gave my wife and myself quite a weird feeling. We’ve made several trips to Phuket this year, flying out in the morning and returning in the evening. One-Two-Go is convenient for us as they fly out of Don Meuang, Bangkok’s old airport, and have an early flight at 7 am. We’d usually fly back on the return leg of the flight that crashed.
While One-Two-Go has been billed as a low-cost carrier in the international press, their prices and service are actually somewhere between the full service carrier Thai Airways, and the no-frills carriers Nok Airlines and Air Asia. On each flight you get the exact same bag of One-Two-Go branded peanuts, and free drinks. Nok and Air Asia charge for their drinks.
The exact cause of the crash is still unknown. The data from the flight recorders is still being investigated. There’s no indication of systemic problems with the airline or the type of aircraft though. One-Two-Go is still flying, and we’ll likely take them on our next trip.
This Wednesday we flew to Phuket with Nok Airlines, a trip we had planned prior to the crash. Since we were staying the night this time, we took a later flight than usual. The weather was good and the flight was uneventful. At Phuket airport, there were no obvious signs that anything had happened just a few days before. While we were a bit nervous on the flight to Phuket, we were just as relaxed (or bored) as usual on the flight back.