Review of China Airlines flight Bangkok → Taipei in Economy

Goodday,

After three great weeks in Asia, it was unfortunately time for us to return to the Netherlands as our holiday was over and I needed to go to work on the 10th again. As this ticket was bought as an open-jaw ticket from Amsterdam to Seoul, returning from Bangkok to Amsterdam with China Airlines, it also meant we had to fly the opposite direction first before returning on the direct course to Amsterdam. 

Flight

As I was staying in the Staybridge Suites Thong Lor and we had quite some luggage, I decided to order a Grab SUV which charged us roughly 600 THB. It wasn't the cheapest ride to be fair, but the chap was very friendly and we had quite some traffic jams. He drove us carefully to Suvarnabhumi Airport.

Asking us what airline we had for today, he droped us off in front of entrance 8 as our intended entrace (no. 7) was so crowded by cars that he was unable to park his car. Not the biggest issue. We thanked the chap for the ride and continued to go inside.

China Airlines was using the P section to check us in with seven check-in counters being open…. Despite the 7 counters, check-in was awfully slow with some people taking up 15 to 20 minutes to check-in. Ground agents of Sky Priority did not check us in either when not occupied (though including in the 7 counters) unless the manager walking around told the person to go to that counter.

It took a solid hour to drop our luggage and check-in for our flight to Amsterdam with a transfer in Taipei. Once complete, we went up a level to security, which unlike previous, was pretty quiet and efficient.

However immediately passing security, we were now in a enormous line for immigration. The last person in line was at security. Thank god I had a Thai wife and was allowed to go with her to the Thai passport counters, so this matter took not more than ten minutes to clear for us, but could have taken another 40 to 45 minutes if I had to wait in the foreign line.

Given that I have a priority pass when traveling, Bangkok offers you quite a variety of lounges you can use. Given that the Air France-KLM Lounge was probably busy given that KLM was departing around the same time, I opted with my wife to go to the Oman Air Lounge, which was pretty quiet at the moment.

The lounge was not overly large, but I found it to be well designed with plenty of seating options.

Soft drinks, coffee/tea & Alcoholic beverages were available.

All food preparations here were halal and wrapped individually in plastic…. In case you wanted the products to be warmer, you could ask staff to heat your meal.

An early lunch in the lounge.

About five minutes to boarding, me and my wife went to our gate for today's departure. The ground agent who checked our boarding card prior to entering the waiting area told us that boarding was delayed by approximately fifteen minutes.

The waiting area of our gate.

And here's our bird being prepared for it's flight to Taipei. B-18317 is a 16.3 year old Airbus A330-300 that has solely flown for China Airlines and was newly delivered to them in October 2007.

Boarding was called roughly 15 minutes past our scheduled boarding time as told by the ground lady and went surprisingly smooth and quick and China Airlines used a large number of Thai flight attendants on this route as more than 50% of the flight attendants on board were able to speak fluent Thai.

Legroom isn't an issue as it is the same old cabin we've had on our flight from Taipei to Seoul about three weeks ago.

Seat 10A offers a nice view though.

Pushback was performed about ten minutes past our scheduled departure when I spotted this Airbus A320 of Vietravel Airlines.. An airline I was suppose to be on in this trip, but was canceled.

An Ethiopian Boeing 787-9 departing to Jakarta as ET628. ET628 is a flight from Addis Abeba to Jakarta via Bangkok, while ET629 does the return leg from Jakarta to Addis Abeba via Bangkok. Oddly enough you are not able to buy tickets with them on the Bangkok-Jakarta leg.

The following departure is this Airbus A320 of Sky Angkor departing to Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Ten minutes past our pushback, we were the one rolling for departure. During the departure, we have a clear view of the terminal which is finally being opened as of september 2023. The terminal handles roughly 14 flights per day at the moment and are mostly done by Thai Vietjet & Thai AirAsia.

About 35 minutes in flight, the flight attendants came by to serve us our complimentary meal and the option was some kind of noodle or Rice with Chicken. I opted for the Rice w/ Chicken, which turned out to be ''Panang Curry''. This dish is quite popular among many other airlines departing out of Bangkok as I've had the same exact meal with other airlines too. The side dishes contained of some berry flavoured dessert, bird seeds, hot bun and some fruit. Next to that I ordered a Taiwanese beer.

The main dish and fruit were alright in taste, however the desert and salad were unedible….. and yes, I know those bird seeds are officially named ''quinoa'' :). 

View of the cabin and wondering whether China Airlines will update those cabins one day or simply replace the A330 fleet with a new modern aircraft.

The literature in the seat pocket and the complimentary headphones, which to now, I haven't bothered to use as the tv screen was absolute terrible to watch anything on.

Cruising

Clean up was done about another 30 minutes or so with not much going on in the mean time. The flight attendants came only by once more to provide us with complimentary water or juice and for duty free goods.

After 3 hours and 15 minutes flying, we were now in approach to Taipei.

Disembarking followed soon and we were dropped off again in the A pier with now 4 hours to kill for our departure to Amsterdam.

See you on the next flight.