Review of EVA Air flight Hong Kong → Taipei in Economy

Hello everybody! This report will cover the second leg of the trip to Taiwan after arriving from Munich with Lufthansa. The flight between Hong Kong and Taipei is nothing special for me but this time was the first time for me to fly with the brand new EVA Air B787-9. 

After I passed through the security check at the transfer counters, I arrived at the departure floor in the middle of terminal 1. I walked towards the food court and had a ramen.

After that I walked slowly to gate 7 where my flight would be departing. The plane had not arrived yet. While I was waiting in front of the gate, my name was called and turned out the staff would like to check my Taiwan entry permit as I was transferred from Germany. I just spotted that the boarding was delayed to 19:25pm probably due to late inbound of the aircraft.

At 18:55pm my plane finally appeared at gate. B-17885 was delivered in September 2018 and she is the first B787 in EVA Air fleet. EVA Air possess 4 B787-9 and all of them are leased from Air Lease Corp. In total EVA Air ordered 4 B787-9 and 20 B-787-10(2 of them are also leased). The inaugural flight was commenced on 1st November 2018, en route TPE to HKG as BR867. At 19:15pm, it was announced that latest boarding time would be at 19:30pm.

Boarding was started at 18:31pm and the boarding sequence was according to the number written on the boarding pass. But this was a bit annoying for me as I had a boarding pass issued by Lufthansa and there was no zone number written on it. Anyway I just queued at the economy line. Here is my seat, 45A. EVA Air's B787-9 are with 26 business class seats and 278 economy class seat. In the economy class, the seats are in 3-3-3 configuration. Adjustable leather headrest on the Recaro seat which was quite comfortable. Disposable earbuds were placed on every seats.

Welcome screen on 12 inch touchscreen monitor. In my opinion, it would be better if the welcome screen can show some useful information such as seat number, time, etc. There is no remote control for the entertainment system.

The flight time was expected to be 1 hour and 40 minutes, and we would be cruising at 39000ft altitude. At 19:48pm, all doors were closed and then Safety instruction video was played. I really appreciated that EVA's creativity on this safety video, but it is really hard for passengers to catch the important message about the safety instruction. In my opinion, it should be easy to understand with the aid of simple animation.

Followed by the safety video was the 5 minutes commercial advertisement as we were taxing to the runway.

At 20:15pm, our plane took off from RWL07R. Unfortunately, inflight cameras are not installed in this new aircraft which was a little bit surprise for me. We headed southwest after takeoff and passed through Hong Kong Island into South China Sea. 

Shortly after takeoff, I tried to check the entertainment program on the monitor. The sensitivity of the monitor was very good, the main menu was simple but pretty easy to navigate.

I was so curious with the catering menu.

The drink list instead was quite amazing.

About 10 minutes after takeoff, the cabin light was turned on again.

At 20:34pm, the meal was served. I was not aware that EVA Air had changed the hot meal into snack tray serving biscotti and cakes provided by Osteria by Angie. I was really looking forward to the hot meal before the flight… The most weird thing for me was the metal cutlery, I wonder who need a fork and knife to eat the snacks indeed.

10 minutes after that, they started to collect the tray. Announcement from the cockpit informing us that the plane would start descending in 10 minutes. The landing time was expected to be 9:35pm.

So, I took the chance to visit the lavatory at the back. Before the door is locked, the lavatory is illuminated by the blue LED lights.

Lotion, Refreshing mist by PAYOT.

After I went back to my seat, the cabin light was dimmed for landing. For the rest of the time, I tried to play Angry Bird on the screen.

At 21:19pm, it was suddenly announced that Taipei airport was very busy and we had to hold before we could descend into Taipei airport and the landing time was to be 22:00pm.

Then I decided to go through the TV comedy to kill the time, but soon I fell asleep for about 20 minutes.

When I woke up, we were almost touchdown on the runway. We landed at 22:00pm and eventually we parked at B6 gate. Total flight time was 1 hour 45 minutes.