Here’s the thing, with millions across the globe trapped at home due to the pandemic, Thailand’s plane cafes give consumers the chance to imagine they ‘re in the sky — and the idea seems to have taken off.
Coffee drinkers on board a retired commercial aircraft in the coastal city of Pattaya make themselves comfortable on first-class seats and pose the overhead lockers for photographs. Some passengers also opt for a cockpit tour, boarding passes in hand. With this cafe I will sit in first class and play about in the cockpit pretending to be the plane’s pilot, Thipsuda Faksaithong.
Chalisa Chuensranoi stated that her tour was as pleasant as any travel she had made before the pandemic that shuttered the borders of Thailand in March.
Sitting right here in the portion of first class really gives the impression that she’s really on a jet, flying through the clouds.
In another café at Bangkok’s Thai Airways national carrier headquarters, hungry diners also seem to have skipped airplane fare as they lap up spaghetti carbonara and Thai-style beef served by cabin crew on plastic trays. But for 38-year-old Intrawut Simapichet, who came with his wife and baby to the cafe, the encounter is more than just dinner.
Normally a very regular flyer, even whenever they were compelled to sit at home … It’s sort of sad, he said, as fellow passengers stood by a mock aircraft door with their baggage. Cafe relieves that which is lacking. Thailand was the first country outside China to diagnose a case of coronavirus, but since then the kingdom has reported a low toll, with about 3,400 infections and 58 deaths.
Nonetheless, travel bans eviscerated the tourism-reliant economy, while Thais find themselves stranded in other countries due to quarantine criteria. Currently , the government is mulling travel bubbles with chosen countries with even low tolls.
