I'm starting to plan my next trip to Thailand in October and am looking for help to decide the best way to get there.
My recent trips have been with EVA, which have been satisfactory most of the time, regarding price and convenience. However, my last two flights and a friend's experience last month has forced me to look around for other airlines. EVA consistently arrives late to Heathrow, causing difficulties with onward pre-booked coach travel, and both I and my friend on different flights have experienced food poisoning, possibly/probably due to the food served on board. I also notice that http://www.airline-network.co.uk/ indicates a steeply increased price of ┬г573 (from ┬г503 in March) for economy.
Looking at other available flights, I see Emirates at ┬г447 from Birmingham (changing at Dubai), but already unavailable for the return flight in December and what seems like a new airline "Etihad" at an incredible ┬г389 from Gatwick or ┬г425 from Heathrow (changing at Abu Dhabi). I still haven't ruled out EVA, especially as I have enough airmiles to upgrade on both outward and inbound journeys (if they have any space available on check-in) and their non-stop flight timings are good for me, if they can arrive on time. However, I'm thinking of trying either Emirates or Etihad and would appreciate any information others can give on their knowledge or experiences of both these airlines, but especially Etihad.
Incidentally, for those who haven't seen my reports of my 3-stage experiment on living in Thailand in the Resource Forum, they are now all installed in my new Blog: http://www.sawatdee-gay-thailand.com...eblog.php?w=25