I have recently returned from my honeymoon in Phuket and we flew with Thai Airways in Economy class from Heathrow to Bangkok as well as the internal flight down to Phuket and again for both flights on the way home.

The downside of the outbound journey was that we sat next to an incredibly uninteresting man in his 50's from Manchester who spent most of the flight telling us about his "girlfriend" in Thailand. As he mentioned on about 14 occasions during the flight, he was supposed to fly out from Mancheter airport but had travelled down to Heathrow because of the snow. He had supposedly been out to visit this young lady every 6 months during their 4-year relationship, yet still went into a fit of hysterics when we encountered a short period of mild turbulence mid-flight. Luckily my wife works as cabin crew for another airline so she was well qualified to explain that it was completely normal. If his story was true, surely he would have known this!

As most reviews will tell you, the in-flight entertainment with Thai Airways leaves a lot to be desired. There are no TV screens in the back of the seats but large central screens that serve about 10-12 rows of passengers. It really depends on where your seats are located whether you get a good view or not. The seats are 3-4-3 across and we were in two of the three at the side which made it difficult with the glare on the screen but a little better when the window blinds were shut. Obviously sitting further back would cause a problem too. It is safe to say that our fellow passenger provided us with more amusement than the entertainment supplied by the airline.

The seats were surprisingly comfortable. There was a generous amount of legroom and a better recline facility than any other plane I have been on. Strangely, the firmness of the seats seemed to vary from one to another. My seat was softer on the way out than the way back and vice versa for my wife.

The staff were incredibly friendly and helpful. Something we noticed on both the flights and the holiday itself was that Thai people really want to look after you and tend to be very apologetic if you have the slightest complaint. This is something we were not used to experiencing in England. My wife is used to consuming large amounts of water on a daily basis and tends to have very bad side effects if she is dehydrated. The stewardesses did not hesitate to supply her with 2-litre bottle of water, even though every other passenger was given small plastic cups.

We all know that airline meals are far from gourmet but this is the first flight I have been on where we were given a menu with a choice of two options for each course and the quality of the food itself was not bad.

I have to point out that we actually booked the honeymoon with Virgin Holidays and most people would assume that this meant Virgin flights. At the time of booking, the operator did give us a choice of flight times and the Virgin flights were more inconvenient for us which is why we went for Thai Airlines. Having flown with Virgin before, the in-flight entertainment was so much better but the customer service, the comfort and the quality of the food was very much the same. My recommendation would be that if you are prepared to forget the in-flight films and take your own entertainment (a good book, an iPod, a laptop or a portable DVD player) with you, use Thai Airways if it saves you a lot of money spend it on shopping in Thailand instead.

I hope you all find this review helpful and please don't hesitate to ask any questions. Thanks for reading.