In booking a Discovery Pass through Bangkok Air, the return to BKK from Luang Prabang is on Lao Air. Can anyone tell me anything about this airline?

Thanks.

Andy, is it really on Lao Air or is it a codeshare with Bangkok Air? SOmeone recently posted that Bangkok Air had terminated their relationship with Lao Air.

Lao Air has long had a very bad reputation. They used to fly old Chinese and Russian planes that lacked reliability, they had a number of crashed and an even larger number of what one might call "untoward incidents" so that Western governemnts and NGOs required that their personnel not fly on Lao Air.

They have obtained new planes, and it's been a while since a crash, so some people feel more reassured about them. But others contend that their training and maintenence practices have not improved, so we can expect continued problems from them.

Hi Gpanda,
We were all set to fly on Lao Airlines from LP to Viantiene before we met someone at a dinner party who runs a community service organization in Thailand. He told us that U.S. Embassy personnel are not allowed to fly on Lao because of its apalling safety record.

That was enough for my husband to require that I cancel the flight (and, sadly, remove LP from our itinerary because the BKK flights were sold out.)

Later I spoke to an adventurous yet neurotic friend who has flown Lao several times without incident. She said that the Lao flights that have crashed were all ancient Chinese planes. According to her research, the French-made ATR72's used on the more touristy routes like LP-BKK comply with international standards (whatever that means).

We flew Lao air last year from LP to Vientiane, as part of the discovery pass. I had no worries at all about the flight or the plane, an ATR72.
In fact, I was flying last month from Tortola to San Juan on American Airlines, and recognized the plane as the same kind of ATR72 we had flown in Laos.

As has been mentioned elsewhere the worrisome flights on Lao are those on the old Chinese planes which are said to operate on the more obscure intra-country routes.

Don't worry as Lao is now just as safe as flying any other airline in Asia. They had trouble a few years ago with the Russian and Chinese old planes but they have been replaced. They are flying the same type of planes that Bangkok Air and other airlines use.

Kathie - Lao is still part of the Discovery Pass. That information posted was incorrect. And just who is saying that they may be problems in the future.

Thanks. When I got the flight numbers for my reservation, the LP-BKK flight was listed as QV ___ and the others PG ___. I asked and was told the 8:00 a.m
LP-BKK flight was on Lao Air.

Andy, If I had an option to fly Bangkok Air rather than Lao Air, I'd do it. I tend to be conservative about flying dodgy airlines. But if there was not another option, I'd just take the Lao Air flight and breathe deeply, knowing that stastically it was still safer to fly than to go via road.

Scotters, those who do air safety work say that since accidents are such rare events, you must look to other markers as well to tell you about an airline's safety or lack thereof. You want to know about their pilot training and their airplane maintanence, and look at markers such as emergency response, in-flight mechanical problems, etc.

Hi, Gpanda!

Last month, June 2007, I took two flights on Lao Airlines. I first flew from Chiang Mai to Luang Prabang, and then later from Luang Prabang to Bangkok.

Both flights were about one hour in length, both flights departed and arrived pretty much on time, both flights required boarding and deplaning out on the tarmac.

One flight provided a junky box lunch which in my opinion contained a spoiled sandwich; the other flight provided nothing. In fact, on the second flight the male and female flight attendants simply sat in the rear and provided no customer service at all.

Don't expect much from Lao Airlines. I did, however, get to my destinations in one piece.