Review of EVA Air flight Bangkok → Amsterdam in Economy

Journey December '18 & January '19

While I just returned from Thailand in October '18, it was now time for me to head back to Thailand once again to start one of my bigger journeys of 2018 (a period of four weeks originally, but decided to add another week to it and travel to Singapore). I decided to book plenty of flights to different cities to explore in both Thailand and Myanmar together with my girlfriend.

A small tip regarding to airlines in Myanmar for domestic flights. In case you want to book a flight with them long in advance, expect your itinerary to be changed from what you originally booked it for. Two or three weeks in advance is sufficient as prices will be the exact same as you would have paid for like six months ago and be sure to verify your flight on their site 24 hours for any change.

So the routing below will give you an idea what my upcoming reports are going to be. Enjoy your read!

The Journey of BR 75.

Unfortunately this is the last flight to report of my amazing journey with ups and downs for December and January and I am curious if EVA Air could impress me after that disappointing flight on my first leg.

After returning from Singapore with Cathay, I've spend my last days in Bangkok prior to catch this flight to Amsterdam. I decided to use GRAB (Similar to Uber) to order a taxi from my hotel. A few seconds later, the taxi was already on his way and was scheduled to arrive within three minutes.

After a ride of 30 minutes or so, the driver dropped me off in front of EVA Air's counters and again a very impressive long row ahead of us. To soften the blow, this line did not take a full 90 minutes to clear like in Amsterdam as ground staff forced passengers to check-in on one of those computers. 

Almost there.. Eventually it lasted only about thirty minutes, which is much improvement yet still a bit too long in my opinion.

After saying the usual byes for me, I proceeded up to security and border control, which I managed to clear in fifteen minutes or so. Most people just follow the herd, while border control on the other side may be very quiet. Our flight would depart from D-8 today and I really never had any flight prior to that departing from that section. 

Time to shop some of my usual Thai alcoholic beverages!  Sangsom & Monsoon Valley Red Wine!

Finished with my shopping and a bag full of King Power goodies, I continued on the E concourse to grab a coffee with The Coffee Club.

Sat down for about 20 minutes to finish my coffee, it was now time for boarding and I did proceed to D8. Despite my complains that Suvarnabhumi rarely cleans their windows….. D concourse definitely needed it the most as I could barely take a photo through it. It was however the only photo I could have made the entire trip of my aircraft.

Today's flight however was performed by B-16708, a 11.4 year old Boeing 777-300ER that has solely been in service to EVA Air with a 3-3-3 config.

Boarding started slightly late and was done in zones. I was in Group five and made as one of the last my way to my seat 51K. Legroom once again was not really an issue on this 777.

The IFE was very responsive, but unfortunately was not updated with new content since my last flight.

Also newspapers were offered upon entering the aircraft and I decided to grab the Bangkok Post. One of my favourite newspapers to be honest.

EVA's Magazine and their in-flight shopping magazine were updated, but were quite damaged.

My window view with another B777-300ER (B-16735) of EVA which just arrived from Taipei as BR201 and would return later back to Taipei as BR202.

Boarding was completed and the safety instruction video was shown on screens. About ten minutes late, the aircraft was now ready to be pushed back to continue his journey to Amsterdam.

A fairly new airline at one of Bangkok's concourse. JC International Airlines would start it's journey to Phnom Penh minutes later. Anyone around who is familiar with them and could recommend them? I would love to try them out.

With a delay of about 35 minutes, we were now rolling on Runway 01R for departure.

Once we reached a safe altitude, the flight attendants started to jump in action to prepare our meal and drink service.

The menu was distributed by a flight attendant and I don't really understand the choice EVA made here. Why would you serve two breakfast-like meals as dinner? It  would have made more sense to start with them and to finish off with the Sky Gourmet.

A few minutes later, the flight attendants started to serve some drinks with some crackers. I opted for a white wine with some water.

Another 30 minutes later, meals were being served.I chose the Steamed Chicken and I must say that it was rather tasteful. Drank some soda water with it. Another good thing is that real cutlery is provided.

Cruising level was reached by now and it would only take another 45 minutes for flight attendants to pick up our trash after serving us some coffee, tea or water.

Once my table was cleared, I quickly took a chance to visit the toilet as my other neighbour was gone too for a few minutes. The toilet was rather small, but contained the same amenities like it did on my first flight. 

By the time I walked up to my seat, I took a quick photo of the cabin.

Many movies later, the sun was setting and gave me some amazing views.

Only thirty minutes later, we were overflying a beautiful mountain range covered in snow.

Curious to it's location, I noticed quickly that we were overflying the Greater Caucasus Mountain range near the crossed border of Azerbeijan, Georgia and the Russian Federation and meant that we only had another five hours to go.

Throughout the flight, some drinks and snacks were constantly being served and about two hours prior to landing, the meal service was yet out. I opted for the Stir Fried Rice Noodles as I hate to eat eggs on board a plane. It was a decent meal.

With about an hour to landing, the tables were cleared by the flight attendants and the pilot checked in with us to inform us about the latest weather in Amsterdam, the updated arrival time and to thank us for flying with EVA. He, thereafter announced too that the approach might be a bit bumpy due to the weather and we would start our descent in about thirty minutes.

Ten minutes to 8 pm, we were now established on the final course for Runway 27 in Amsterdam and we would touch down at approximately 8 pm, which meant that we were about 25 minutes late. 

After a short taxi to our gate, it took only a few minutes for us to be gone and on our way to collect our luggage. Border control was cleared in five to ten minutes for me and we needed to walk quite a distance to our belt. 

To my surprise some of the luggage was already arriving from our flight (this must be a record for Amsterdam), but the next batch of luggage took another five to ten minutes to arrive as our belt received a technical malfunction…..

You don't see customs often on scene, but they are definitely there in full force for flights from Latin America & Southeast Asia. Luckily I was not picked and could continue home.