Review of EVA Air flight from Bangkok to Taipei in Business

Please, please, please do not see this review in any way as a bad display of EVA. While I am always appreciative of a lie-flat seat, and have loved EVA Air's offerings in the past on their long-haul J product, I feel that I do have to be honest in this review about today's flight. 

Intro

There are some pretty brutal redeyes across the world, such as Denver to Atlanta, Dubai to Kabul, etc… However, this next portion of my adventure would see me flying on EVA Air from Bangkok to Taipei on a pretty horrible redeye. The flight is scheduled to depart at 1:35 am, and lands at 6:20 am in Taipei, with a flight time of just over 3 hours. It's brutal…

I have always loved EVA Air on its long-haul routes. Before Covid, I flew a lot of EVA on the Bangkok to London route and had some of the best service I've had on a plane. So going into this flight I was excited to test out EVA on a short-haul route. While the hard product is good, the service was nothing short of quite rough around the edges. Let's get into it! 

Welcome back to the Asia trip since I finished the Africa/Afghan one

Routing

How I Booked

With my Aeroplan adventure coming to an end, I had to get up to Seoul for dinner the next evening. Seeing as direct economy flights were around 400$ and business was about 900$, I decided to book a connecting flight with EVA Air from Bangkok-Taipei-Seoul for 660$. This also helped me secure 1K for the year as this credited two more PQFs to my United account.

SQ Lounge BKK

Once landing from Dhaka onboard Thai Airways in Business Class, I visited the EVA Air Lounge in Bangkok which looks like an airport go-go bar (in a good way) for a little bit. I also managed to sneak in a little bit of time in the Singapore Silverkris Lounge in Bangkok which is nice but closes around 10 pm unfortunately. 

All in all, this is a nice lounge but doesn't quite have the same vibe to it as the EVA Air Lounge. 

Boarding

With a scheduled departure time of 1:35 am, boarding was set to commence at 1:00 am sharp. Heading down to the gate area, I saw a long line of people waiting to board as boarding had been delayed until 1:30 am due to traffic in the area.

Sure enough, right at 1:30 am boarding commenced with those needing extra assistance followed by business class and Star Alliance Gold members.

Stepping onboard, I found a busy crew preparing for departure. In comparison with Thai Airways where I was welcomed onboard and escorted to my seat, this was the complete opposite. But, a flight I took in December was the opposite of today's experience on EVA…

The Seat/Cabin

EVA Air operates three business-class products across their widebody fleet (minus a few of their older A330s with recliners review coming soon of that). Their 777s feature reverse herringbone seats in a 1-2-1 configuration, their A330s feature lie-flat seats in a 2-2-2 configuration, and their 787s feature lie-flat seats in a 1-2-1 configuration.

The cabin is laid out with 34 business-class seats across 9 rows (for some reason EVA skips row 4). If you traveling by yourself, look for seats in rows 2,5,7, and 9 for maximum privacy. Unfortunately, when I booked, the only available window seat was 10K.

For a long-haul product this is a fantastic product, let alone that EVA Air flies these planes on intra-Asia routes. Each seat features a decent amount of footwell space, a large IFE screen, seat controls (which you don't bump into in the middle of the night), a small cubby for storage, and more space for storage underneath the counter.

Very impressive hard product!

Side thingy

Storage

Departure

At 2:00 am local time, the captain came on to announce that we were delayed due to "ATC Flow Control" and that we would be pushing back shortly. He expected a flight time of 3 hours and 10 minutes, with a slightly late arrival into Taipei.

Sure enough, we pushed back a few minutes later at 2:06 am local time, in which the safety video was played. 

Enter text here…

At 2:18 am local time, we were wheels up from Runway 20L departing to the South.

Amenities

Once airborne, I decided to check out the multitude of amenities that EVA Air features on this short flight. In most airlines around the world, you are lucky to get a blanket and pillow, but EVA Air takes its amenities to the next level with slippers, noise-canceling headphones, and comfortable bedding.

Yes, you can see the American coming out in me here, as I am wearing shorts (it's the only clean clothes I had left at the time). 

Slippperssss

EVA Air

If you are worried about getting bored on your flight, you better drop those worries, as EVA Air offers an extensive selection of movies and TV shows. The seatback screen is of exceptional quality and can be accessed through touchscreen or the remote located next to the seat. 

EVA Air also has Wifi onboard their aircraft at a relatively steep cost. While I do appreciate that EVA offers 30 minutes of free wifi to passengers, I do think that 16$ for a 3-hour flight is on the steep side.

Or you can just sit back and look at this beautiful cabin lit up.

Meal Service (ISH)

Upon boarding the aircraft, waiting next to my seat were the menus for the flight tonight. Considering that this is a brutal redeye, I was pleasantly surprised to see a couple of dinner options, as well as a full wine menu. While EVA Air is known for its fabulous champagne in Royal Laurel long-haul routes, they serve Castlenau on the short-haul products. 

While I had planned to eat, and even ordered the braised beef on the ground, unfortunately, I wasn't woken up by the cabin crew after takeoff. They asked if I wanted to be woken up, and I responded with a yes, please, but sadly I must have been too deep in sleep when they came around.

This is not something I will fault the crew on.

Bed Time

Upon taking off, I placed my seat in the lie-flat position and headed off to bed. This would now be my 4th straight night on a plane, and I was starting to feel the effects of all of this traveling.

The bed was comfortable, although I am not the biggest* fan of this seat due to the slightly constricted footwell compared to the Reverse Herringbone seat. 

Service

Falling asleep for about 2 hours and 15 minutes, I woke up just before we began our descent into Taipei. Unlike Turkish Airlines, there was no FA to come over and offer me a pre-landing beverage, but rather it took me 10 minutes to flag down a flight attendant.

So let's discuss service. EVA Air has fantastic service on their long-haul flights, but this is not the same on short-haul flights. I found the flight attendants to be passive and somewhat rude sorry to say. I'm sorry to say it I am . Of course, I am grateful to be flying business, but it's important to be honest in these reviews… Here are some things that stood out to me:

No pre-departure beverage was offered

When taking my meal order it was simply "What do you want to eat?"

Upon waking up, I had to flag down an FA to get a morning champoffee or anything at all really

When the champagne arrived, it turned out it was flat, and when I told the cabin crew, they just walked away… Really?

We had begun our descent into Taipei and were at 20,000 feet. I got up to grab my charger and was shouted at to sit down while someone else 3 rows ahead was up as well. They also didn't shout at him which was weird, hence why I got up in the first place. A nicer way would have been to approach me and inform me that we are on descent instead of shouting at me through the whole cabin.

To me, service is the dealbreaker when it comes to carriers in this region. I would rather fly on Thai Airways on their 777-200 dated business class product and receive excpetional service, then on a better hard product with EVA. Now for long-haul, my mind might change if the seat wasn't lie-flat and I was paying for business…

Arrival

By 6:00 am local time, the captain announced our initial descent down into Taipei. We ended up having a smooth approach and touched down on Runway 23R at 6:31 am (20 minutes behind schedule). 

Nice day in Taipei. Actually my first time here, but in the last 9 months have been 7 times now haha.

From there we had an 8 minute taxi and pulled int gate C7 at 6:39 am local time. 

Getting off the plane there was no thank you for flying EVA Air or anything of the sort. Quite the contrast to the previous flight with Thai Airways. 😒. Thanks for reading.