Review of EVA Air flight Taipei → Hong Kong in Economy

Hello everyone! Welcome to the second part of the trip to Asia. This report will cover the flight from Taipei to Hong Kong with EVA Air. Since I had already applied the automatic check-in process, I received in advance the boarding pass.

From my hotel, I took a taxi to Taipei station, and then I travelled with the MRT to the airport. In Town Check-in was possible at the station, but when I tapped on the screen of the machine, there was no EVA Air to choose from, so I decided to do it at the airport.

The MRT journey to airport took about 35 minutes.

Once arrived, I went directly to the check-in counters. There were a few people at the baggage drop counters. The staff asked us if we wanted to have a paper boarding card or simply the one stored in the phone. We were just fine with the mobile.

After that I went upstairs to the rooftop where the observation desk was located.

An Asiana A330-300, HL7741 was preparing its flight back to Seoul as OZ714 at 17:10pm. Next to it parked a EVA Air B777-300ER, B-16719 still in old color, would fly to Los Angeles as BR12 at 19:20pm. At Last at the far end, an EVA Air A321-200, B-16223, arriving from Okinawa as BR185.

Another EVA Air B777-300ER, B-16717, arriving from Los Angeles as BR5.

At the back, parked a B787-9, B-17881, which was the aircraft that took me from Munich two days ago. Next to it parked a A330-300, later I learnt that this would be my plane to Hong Kong.

The left side from the observation deck.

EVA Air A330-200, B-16310, ready to depart to Macau as BR805. Currently there are only 3 A330-200 left in EVA Air's fleet, they are going to be phased out.

I spent just roughly 15 minutes upstairs, because I was not able to predict how many people at the security check and immigration, I decided to go air-side as early as possible.

And turned out there were very few people and I was through in no time. The automatic gate at the immigration was super convenient.

I still had some Taiwan dollars left, and so I went upstairs to the food court and brought a drink.

Then I headed to the gate. The gate C5R for my flight is located on the ground floor and this indicated a bus gate as well. It seemed that our flight was also code-shared with Hong Kong Airlines.

Number 1 was my gate, and there were not too much people there.

I waited for a while and boarding was started at 17:32pm. I was in number 4 of the boarding sequence. That's why I boarded with the second bus and was quite late.

Our plane to Hong Kong, A330-300, B-16339 delivered to EVA Air in June 2017.

My seat 35K

Cabin during boarding. Seats in economy class are 2-4-2 configured.

Back of the economy seat. The monitor was dated, and much smaller comparing with those on B787. A remote control was also available.

View out of my window.

Soon, the cabin crew was giving out the ear phone.

Most of the passengers were seating in the second section of the economy class, the first section was really empty. At 17:59pm, the captain informed us the flight time of one hour and 20 minutes, and we were going to pushback in 10 minutes.

Two minutes later, doors were closed and Safety video was then played

At 18:13pm Pushback was commenced. 5 minutes later cabin light was dimmed for takeoff. While we were taxing, the noise (probably coming from the hydraulics) caught my attention, because the noise was happening very frequent.

Finally we took off from runway 05R at 18:22pm

The IFE became available.

Cabin view while we were ascending to cruising altitude.

Chasing the last ray of sun

This was the main menu of the IFE. The system was much simpler than the B787.

So I decided to watch a Taiwanese drama called Lesson in Love, but I could only watch the first 20 minutes due to the short flight time.

About 10 minutes after takeoff, cabin light was turned on again. I then received my meal in which shrimp cold noodles, together with a snack and apple juice were served on tray. Although they were not serving hot meals, this time was definitely and an upgrade comparing with what I experienced in 2019.

Had a cup of oolong tea as the complementary drink.

After the crew collected the tray, I visited the toilet behind me.

Toiletry products from PAYOT.

Some decoration flowers

View of the almost empty front economy section 

At 19:03pm, the captain announced that we were flying at 38000 fleet, and we were going to descend in 10 minutes, the weather was cloudy and temperature was 31°C in Hong Kong.

We were approaching Hong Kong from the South and passed through Hong Kong Island while descending.

At 19:40pm, we landed on runway 07L. Total flight time was 1 hour and 18 minutes.

We parked at gate number 6 in terminal 1.

Total flight route.

Thanks for reading!