Review of China Airlines flight from Taipei to Denpasar in Economy

This the first in a short series of flights for a vacation in Indonesia’s Bali and Sulawesi Islands, back in 2012.
TPE – DPS (A330-300 – China Airlines) After the typhoon YOU ARE HERE
DPS – UPG (B737-800 – Garuda) Flight above a volcano
UPG - DPS (B737-800 – Garuda) I am Marathon –> to be posted soon
DPS - TPE (A330-300 – China Airlines) After another typhoon –> to be posted slightly later
This vacation could have been off a very bad start because it had been a busy typhoon season. I kept making full use of my karma which was blessing me with narrow escapes from typhoons, because after escaping from Typhoon Vicente which closed HKG a couple hours before my take off from there, Typhoon Saola closed TPE two days before this flight.
See here Saola’s trajectory which crossed the north of Taiwan on 2nd August, with Typhoon Damrey offshore Japan’s Kyushu island further north.

On 1st August, the authorities recommended to all companies to close business no later than 6:30 pm. Pure coincidence, I had come across that day upon this sentence in my Chinese manual, to be modified in order to use the expression corresponding to “due to”:

Why did you prepare so much food ? (typhoon)
My Chinese teacher had smiled : "That’s in the news". She already knew that it would be a short work day, and explained to me that in these circumstances, the Taiwanese store food which does not need heating or refrigeration, in order to be immune from power cuts.
This shop owner in my neighborhood was the last one to lower his shutters, taping on it a small makeshift excuse notice.

The Taiwanese were requested to stay tuned to the media around 8 pm, and one of colleagues beat Human Resources for the scoop by a few minutes:

"Typhoon holiday", meant that the local authorities had set an exceptional legal holiday so that all people could stay safely at home.
When I checked TPE’s website at the end of the day, I derived a telling statistic: on 2ng August, out of 73 plane movements scheduled between 6pm and midnight:
- 34 cancelled flights
- 20 flights postponed to the next day
- 18 flights delayed several hours
- 1 flight expected on time (at 23:55)
The flights with a CI or BR number were in that average, but it was impossible to draw any conclusion because most were sharecoded in their alliances.
So I left home on Saturday morning, too early to take the bus (and the subway before that). I had already checked in on line the day before, and a long time before selected a window seat on the right out of lighting considerations, which CI made possible from D-90.

After a weatherman’s prologue, this FR begins on a fair although mildly hazy weather in the taxi driving me to TPE’s Terminal 1. It was 6 am, and I soon as I had arrived in the avenue close to my home and raised an arm, a taxi driver took a daring diagonal trajectory to stop at my level:
- To the airport ? I’ll do it for 1,000 TWD.
Some taxis propose such a flat rate, which is less than the metered rate which would rather be 1,200 TWD, but this driver saved the toll by driving through the suburbs. Yingge, Sanxia, are as many ugly suburban oysters hiding cultural pearls. Traffic was nil at that time of the day and the extra travel time was not an issue.
The driver dropped me at Terminal 1, under the sign of 中華航空 [Zhonghua Hangkong, a.k.a. China Airlines). Terminal 1 was then under massive renovation, and there were changes each time I was using it. The taxi driver could not guess that the only entrance was at the far end, and did not know either that I would backtrack the whole distance once inside the building before reaching CI’s check in counters.

The waiting time was quasi-nil for Skypriority check in and for luggage drop off of OLCI passengers,

… whereas it was longish for standard non-priority check-in

A very fast check-in, and I even had a Priority luggage tag thanks to my FB Silver status, which did not change matters at destination. A local peculiarity was that the checked luggage are X-rayed at the end of the check-in counters, and the passengers is asked to please wait there a couple minutes until the luggage has been cleared, before going up to the Departures level.

On the left, this was a temporary wall sealing the door through which I would have entered the terminal.

There was a time when it was possible to overlook the security check area from an overhead gangway, but that was over: this decoration replaced the previous windows.

But much like at Terminal 2, the immigration counters were very close to a corridor

… and since half of them were unused, it was easy to take a picture of the sober workplace of the immigration officers.

"My" (female) immigration officer waved me to her counter with a smile, and gave me back my travel documents with a wider smile. I cannot imagine a Taiwanese immigration officer without her smile.
I had not been to TPE to visit the exhibit of this painter. Once I was past this famously ridiculously short escalator came the time for plane spotting. The lighting conditions in the morning favor Wings A-D, and that is the one which is devoted to Skyteam, and of course mostly to the local player : CI.

Let’s start with CI’s 747 in Skyteam livery.

I checked my flashcards : when a big Airbus has two reactors, it is an A330.

What do you mean, wrong ? No matter how I was looking at it, I could see only two reactors.

OK, I admit that this was an A340 above, but now, this was really an A330.

Skyteam was not limited to CI, and there was this VN 332

I like VN for their blue livery in stark contrast on the tarmacs, and also for their useful airplane model reminders.

There was no plane model shop; I saw only those, which were very expensive compared to the ones that I could buy in town.

I stopped at this group of self-serve computers…

… for the regulatory corporate screen shot.

Due to the on-going renovation work, it was then impossible to walk a full circle through Zones A-D-B-C airside : there was only on zig-zagging corridor between Zones A-D and Zones B-C.

That was where you could see the CX twin aisle aircraft serving the HKG-TPE route - this A330 was the 100th delivered to CX.

And this 747.

A Far Eastern Air Transport MD-80/82, and the Air Palau 757, whose presence on TPE’s tarmac I already explained in detail in this TPE-PEK FR.

Palau was also getting a place of honor in CI’s in-flight magazine : since Taiwan was subsidizing this country, the Taiwanese should at least take advantage of its diving spots.

The decoration of the orchid display had changed since my previous flight out of TPE.

A CI 747 taxies along the BR aircraft

The two major Taiwanese airlines

The famous "Hello Kitty" C3 gate, but there was an ordinary flight at that time.

The type of aircraft that I’m best at identifying is the Boeing 777-300ER, at least when it is operated by BR.

Going back to Zone D, past the inescapable Mickey / Hello Kitty shop.

A pilot was hesitating on the gist to be offered to his daughter there.

Giant flower art

The crew of my flight had arrived at about ETD-1h (I had made an initial visit to this gate, before touring the terminal)

They had used this modern styled elevator, but it could take the whole crew together, and these are the last FAs for the flight.

Gates D1 to D4, from above. Like the identical three other gates at the ends of both terminals, this area is not very plane spotter-friendly, because there is a deplaning corridor and therefore a double layer of tinted glass and lots of window frames.

Apart from the free wifi sign overhead, and the usual cold and hot water fountain, there was something special here

Unlike Paris airports, TPE allows changing a baby’s diapers while wearing trousers, which allows fathers to do it without wearing a kilt.

Inside the toilets, it was not luxurious, but tidy and decorated.

There were power ports available at the foot of the pillars of the room.

… but a passenger appeared to have tried plugging in a laptop which required more than 1,200 W.

I don’t know what you think about it, but I had an impression that there was something wrong in the silhouette of this pregnant woman with a pram.

Boarding was by zone and on time.

Tow views of the Economy cabin, towards the front and the rear.

For uniform geeks, this was that of CI’s female FAs.

This was going to be my space for a nearly five hour flight : this was then CI’s longest medium haul route. Anything longer was to Australia, Europe or North America.

Because this flight was only 60% full, and I was fortunate to have an empty seat next to me. The IFE screen was very big, but the resolution was good, i.e. much better than that of AF in pre Best & Beyond times. The display displayed various scenes which were supposed to be soothing, with a music which was at a very weak sound level. I did not feel that music as being aggressive like on other airlines, my worst memory in this regard being Flight URC-SHA with Juneyao Airlines, with incidentally had the same flight duration.

The CI aircraft push back one after the other

The safety card which provided me the type of the aircraft.

The seat pitch was very decent

An A330 en pointe.

.. before soaring away

Now was the turn of this 744 freighter

Runway 05L is alongside Wing A-D which is dedicated to Skyteam, and of course has mostly flights from this alliance, like this DL 744.

And two other CI aircraft before mine

Only one left for take-off :

But a BR intruder came up (the JAL aircraft in the background did not count, because she was being towed).

This was no anomaly because this MD-11 was taxiing from the freight area.

A look at the A300 which was used as a training ground for the emergency services – the reactors had been removed and replaced by fake ones.

And take off. The building with a large roof is Terminal 1.

The freight area below, separated from the passenger terminals by the taxiway above.

I used some image processing for the following pictures. This is the mouth of the Danshui River, which flows through Taipei. On the left bank, this is the harbor of Bali (unrelated with the destination of this flight).

The city center. The bridge furthest right is Taipei Bridge ; the central station is at the level of the two bridges upstream, on the right bank (i.e. on the left in this picture). On the left bank lies New Taipei City (新北市 Xinbei, in Mandarin) : this is not a new city, but a recent administrative creation.

We were quickly above the mountains surrounding Taipei

The artificial lake which is part of Taipei’s fresh water supply system.

Note that the river was loaded with silt ripped off upstream by the pouring rains due to Typhoon Saola, in the vicinity of Touchang.

The winglet whose colors blend in well in the sky

And then we reached the east coast of Taiwan, on the Pacific Ocean side, which we were going to follow flying south. It was unfortunately very cloudy.

The opening of the Taroko Gorges. If you ask “What is it?”, then you never have visited a Taiwanese tourist information office or website.

Hualien Airport, which is mixed civilian / military. See my FR TSA-HUN for more details about it.

And the airbase which is next to Taitung on the left, but the cloud cover hid TTT (the commercial airport).

I did not identify these mountains – the Taiwanese mountains are quite difficult to recognize because it is such a jumble of crisscrossing valleys.

Since we were flying away from any land area, I went around in the aircraft, with this view of the Y cabin from the rear

The rear toilets were quite narrow, unlike those located at the level of curtain in the front :

No AC power port, but there was a USB port which recharged my camera.

The IFE screen’s quality was good, but I only used it for the air show (it had several options), and for the audio channel. There was not a very large selection of movies, but there were many types, including Western ones.

A first go for drinks (a coffee for me - the quality was decent)

… a typically Chinese – Taiwanese mix of snacks .

Most passengers took a few hours of sleep, which gives you an idea of the seat pitch. That French family here on the center aisle seats of two rows was quite uneducated (not downright the “ugly foreigner” type, but I did not want to be associated with them either in any manner)

Most passengers lowered their window shades, but this was not a KE flight where long haul passengers are forced to travel in the dark, even during the day, and I could work comfortably on this flight report. The decrease in lighting made it possible to see the mood lighting.

Several non-identified islands

There was no printed menu : the choice was announced by the FA to be either chicken-noodles or rice-sea food. This was the tray the way it arrived on my tablet.

And after unwrapping.

The hot meal was disappointing : both the rice and the seafood were very dry and the sauce was unconvincing. The pineapple flavored cake , top left, is a Taiwanese specialty which generated this comment from my French neighbors: “What is that pebble?”.
The coffee, unlike that served earlier, had possibly been rejected by Mandarin Airlines’ Quality Department and surreptitiously recycled in the parent airline. See my TTT-TSA report for my evaluation of coffee served by AE.

Is there any Borneo remote airport geek around ? These are two landing strips that I tried hard and failed to identify. Clues are welcome ! I managed to take reasonably sharp pictures of the first one.

And the second one : no matter how many times I tried, I could not take any sharper pictures. It was really too far away.

The southern tip of Borneo Island

The north coast of Bali which was entirely under the clouds

… and only volcanoes came out of them

After crossing Bali from north to south, this is the south coast of the island. The plane was going to veer left and align on the runway.

The coast, one minute before landing

Deployment of the thrust inverters and spoilers

Several business jets were parked away from the terminal :

Cessna Citation C560 (Dabi Air Nusantara)

A Sky Aviation Indonesia Fokker 50

The 737s of several more or less low cost airlines, parked away from the terminal:
Lion Air

Virgin Australia

Air Asia

Lion Air again

A TG 772

Departure of a Garuda A330

The Economy Premium cabin while deplaning:

… with a 2-3-2 layout vs. 2-4-2 in Economy, and a more generous seat pitch.

And for the plane number geeks, that of the plane that had flown me that day.

They were busy on the side of B-18391.

This was more a flying club kind of aircraft (Cessna 172 ?)

A Virgin Australia 737 was pushed back

I now had to wait in line for quite a long time to buy a 25 USD visa on arrival fee stamp (that I could also pay cash for 25 EUR or 25 GBP – guess what was my choice !), and then wait in line for a long time to go through immigration proper, because I was not only among the last to leave my plane, but it also seemed that another twin aisle aircraft had also just landed too.
[According to my latest information, French nationals now enjoy a visa exemption for a 30 day tourist visit]

… and it turned out that no matter if they were priority or not, nearly all checked luggage had already been delivered, and mine was (no, it was not this stroller !)…

…and finally wait for a long time at the X-ray Customs check, for all sizes of luggage.