thegilbeys

I fly into BKK from Heathrow at 3.40pm on a Monday and need to get to Samui that night. How long should I leave between arrival and departure - considering customs, etc?

And leaving again? My flight to Sydney leaves BKK at 5.05pm on a Friday.

Also, should I be worried about the airport situation? I'm flying in and out with BA and at the moment my itinerary says BKK but is this likely to change? The domestic flights with Thai Airways also use BKK don't they?

Help please?

KimJapan

The only airline that flies into Koh Samui is Bangkok Air. Depending on what airline you are flying into BKK on, you may be able to check your bags through to Samui. Bangkok Air flies out of Suvarnabhumi, and international arrivals and departures are also there, so you don't need to worry about which airport (at least at this point). www.bangkokair.com is the website you can book your tickets. It lists domestic to international connnection minimum time as 2 hours, but I'd allow more to be comfortable.

MichaelBKK

Last question first: You can't fly Thai to Samui, so there's no need to worry about which airport they'll use. The old airport is being re-opened ONLY for domestic flights, and ONLY Nok Air and 1-2-Go are moving all operations there. Thai is moving some domestic flights to the old airport, but as I said, they don't fly to Samui, so don't worry.

The only domestic airline serving Samui is Bangkok Airways, which is servicing all of its flights out of the new airport, which is where your BA flight will land.

First, you should check with BA to see if you can check your baggage through to Samui, and go through customs there. Bangkok Airways has a lot of interconnection agreements with international carriers, so that may be possible.

If it is possible to check your luggage through, then you don't have to go through immigration and customs in Bangkok, and you could conceivable leave as little as 1 hour for your transit time. Personally, I would be more comfortable with 2 hours. Bangkok Airways has a lounge open to all passengers that you can hang out in to kill time.

If you have to go through immigration in Bangkok, then I would allow three hours. Immigration and baggage claim have generally been quite smooth at the new airport, but something like Murphy's Law says that if you allow for less time, that's the day things will get jammed up.

thegilbeys

Thanks for your help guys. Sorry, I must've had brain freeze when I said Thai because I am totally aware that Bangkok Air is my only option here. Duh!

rhkkmk

i believe that you can fly thai to surat thani and then take the boat across to samui....maybe that has changed however...

i always try to leave as much time as possible because of flight delays etc...

MichaelBKK

I think Surat Thani is now served only by Nok and Air Asia. It is cheaper, but it really sucks up a lot of time. One hour to fly to Surat, close to an hour to transfer to the pier, then another hour-plus for the ferry. Getting to Samui quickly becomes an all-day exercise if you don't fly Bangkok Air.

StanKase

The flights on Bangkok Air are just about every hour from 7AM to 10 PM.If you can check bags to Koh Samui you can easily make a 7 PM flight if not a 6 PM. The flight is about 1+/- hour assuming you do not have to sit on the rinway in BK more than the usual 20-30 minutes.
On an unrealated subjuct I assume you are not coming all that way just for Koh Samui. We have been there twice and 5 full days is more than enough including a 1 day outing to Koh Tao (taking the speed boat-not the BIG BOAT- for the snorkeling there is excellent and is fair at best around Samui.

thegilbeys

It wouldn't really be 5 full days as we won't be getting to Samui until Monday night but semantics aside this is a stopover for us on the way home from Italy.