Review of China Airlines flight from London to Taipei in Economy

I spent a lot of time figuring out the best place to go on the way from London to Perth. Most of that planning wasn't really directly relevant to the flight experience so feel free to skip it.
The basic idea was that I came across the idea of going to Palau.

…it was then that I remembered China Airlines to Koror, one of my earlier ideas, and soon it all came together with a few days in Taiwan and a day and a half in Koror, enough to see the main highlights without having to stay too long (the only other option as flights into Palau are not very frequent). The stopover in Taiwan took a bit of figuring out too, to avoid too much time there, but the final itinerary just left London later to avoid that.
This particular ticket was a bit over £540, around $720 including a stop in Taipei and the next leg into Koror. Every other European city was far more expensive than London (and anyway I was in London already), while this date was the best for the schedule and also cheaper than the others. While I would have preferred EVA, they didn't fly to Koror, it was a lot more expensive and would have required a stop in Bangkok as EVA doesn't fly nonstop to London.
Manila to Perth also got a bit complicated but this was the final routing.

This would be my first flight on SkyTeam in nearly three years, the last being Virgin Atlantic Heathrow-Delhi in 2023… the check-in for that flight was right next to this one.

The check-in area for China Airlines at Heathrow T3 was in a fairly small space - area B - shared with SriLankan, IndiGo and Aeromexico. Virgin Atlantic and Delta had their own larger space while other groups of airlines were in different sections.

There was no line, probably as most people had gone through already. It was about 100 minutes before departure.

As a result, check-in didn't take long.
Security was extremely slow. It took just a few seconds to get through, but then they were checking seemingly every bag with liquids inside, even though you're meant to keep everything in the bag and liquids are allowed. My bag was also checked as I had a water bottle in there. They really should just ask people to take liquids out as evidently they need that to be done anyway.
The staff were fairly chill and peaceful which would generally be nice but I wouldn't have minded if they were a little more hurried with the checks!
International departures, not that many tonight from T3.

On the way to the gate I passed, among other planes (BA to Prague, SriLankan to Colombo, IndiGo to Delhi), an Aeromexico 787 preparing for departure to Mexico City.

It was a long walk to the gate which seemed to be at the end of the gates being used. The flight was a little late so there was plenty of time.
A fairly poor view of our plane, B-18906 (Mainland China, Macau, Hong Kong and Taiwan all use the B- registrations), a 9.3 year old A350-900. The plane had done a Brisbane-Auckland return trip from Taipei before heading to London.
The Cathay Pacific there was replacing another one just pushing back to Hong Kong.

The Prague and Colombo planes. Not sure where Virgin was going.

Eventually a rather messy group boarding started. Everyone just kind of stood around and then weaved their way to the front when their zone was called. I was near the back so in zone 1, and boarded near the beginning of economy.

Hello again.

There was a basket of earbuds just outside the plane.

Business had a separate jetbridge, so economy passengers entered next to premium economy.

The crew gave friendly welcomes and the cabin looked nice, a good start to the flight.

My seat.

The seat design was a little different to most A350s with a bit less storage space.

Along with very slow USB-A charging there was a universal power outlet.

Unfortunately no personal vents, but the cabin was kept cool the whole flight.

The headrest was adjustable. 

There was a pillow and blanket at each seat.

Bifold tray table.

Two sickness bags, a safety card, and a lot of stuff for shopping.

I found another one as well later. Sadly none of them had a route map or information about China Airlines.

The screens were playing ads; entertainment wasn't available yet.
The crew handed out slippers, which was quite nice and not something that you often get in economy.

Then they confirmed my special meal order.
The ads switched to a nice video about different places in Taiwan.

The sun was starting to set outside.

The crew offered earbuds to people, reminding me that I'd gotten some from earlier. They were pretty standard.

The safety video was bilingual. It used a futuristic looking plane (they'd really struggle to pressurise it with those windows though…)

The entertainment started after that, as we pushed back.

There was a decent movie and game selection - though some games didn't work, at least not on my screen - but just random episodes of all kinds of shows in the TV section. The screen was quite slow and the one in the empty middle seat was stuck on the welcome page and didn't work at all.
Finally we pushed back, passing LATAM Brasil and Cathay Pacific 777-300ERs.

Virgin Atlantic and Hainan Airlines 787s, the latter going to Haikou.

A little Dublin-bound Aer Lingus A320neo. Only a week ago I'd flown one of its siblings over from Cork, and another to Dublin a few days prior.

China Southern A350 to Daxing, Air India 777 to Mumbai.

LATAM Brasil again, off to São Paulo.

Yet another 777, China Eastern, this one I believe going to Shanghai-Pudong.

And then, with a last view of LATAM and Thai behind it…

…we were Taipei-bound.
Good view of Heathrow from the air.

And a great view of London in the sunset.

And then the UK was gone.

Wifi became available on takeoff, with free messaging and a reasonable full flight internet price, though the partial flight packages were poorly priced.

I connected to the free messaging but found that I actually got connected to the internet somehow, though it was very slow.

Dinner service began with water. Nice cups China Airlines had.

Special meals came soon afterwards.

Metal cutlery, always nice. They didn't provide a spoon, strangely.

Interestingly the bread had all its ingredients written on it.

Then there was a main course: rice (supossedly saffron rice, though I couldn't taste that) and I think sweet potato, a salad and fruit.

The main was good, the fruit and bread was… normal fruit and bread. The salad wasn't great after I made the mistake of mixing in the paste with it, but the main was quite filling so that was alright.
The normal meal service got to my row a little while after I finished.
While waiting for the drinks I had a look at some of the other features on the IFE screen.

The connecting flight information didn't show up at any time during the flight. It always said to wait until 30 minutes for landing but even after that, nothing came up.
I had a few days in Taiwan so this didn't matter for me.

The e-reader also didn't work. After it closed and went back to the home screen on its own three times, this message came up.

And here's the non special meal menu.

I just got some apple juice, which was exceptionally good.

Cabin lighting after dinner. 
Everyone was asked to close their windows.

It took a little while for the trays to be cleared. Afterwards I think they offered some tea, but I missed that.
For most of the flight there was a line for the lavatory. It was clean inside and had music playing which was interesting.
Cabin view.

I asked about any available amenities and was given an eye mask and dental kit. They also had water and some snacks sitting in the galley, I took water.

I got a few hours of sleep.
Four and a half hours from Taipei was the midflight snack service. Surprisingly they even had special meal options, which came after the regular ones. It wasn't a full service, just passing sandwiches to whoever they saw was awake; lights were still off.

Admittedly it wasn't very good but I appreciate that they offered something.
The crew came a few times throughout the flight with trays of drinks but on my side of the plane it was a bit weird, they went through very fast and you just had to get their attention in the second or so they were next to you which I didn't manage. On the other side it was much slower. The crew were nice enough generally, though.
Cabin view around 4 hours from Taipei, can't really see much to be fair.

In the galley they had crackers, which didn't look very good.

Some water.

And a neck pillow/eye mask combo.

When I'd gotten the water bottle earlier there had been wafers as well, and of course the water was bottled. I took a cup of water.

The second meal on this flight was breakfast, despite it being served in the middle of the afternoon.

Metal cutlery again.

The tofu wasn't very good while the rest of the main was average. I liked the yogurt, though, especially after I discovered there was compote on the bottom.

For some reason I wasn't very hungry on this flight.
Cabin view during the main service. At least to me it looks a bit like napkins all over the ground but that was just a design on the carpet.

I got orange juice.

With very few clouds there was an excellent view of mainland China during the flight. By the way, this flight avoided Russian airspace.
Flying over Guangzhou.

I believe that's Baiyun airport there.

And that must be Hong Kong.

Lighting change again.

45 minutes or so from arrival they played several videos about biosecurity and information for arriving in Taiwan.
And there's Taiwan.

Welcome to Taoyuan International Airport!

International lineup.

We parked next to Tigerair Taiwan, with Jetstar Japan and then Peach further down.

While waiting for deplaning, the same videos about Taiwan and China Airlines from the beginning of the flight were played again.

Another quick view of the seats on the way out.

Nice design on the bulkhead.

Premium economy.

Already sunset again.

It was a fairly quick walk to immigration, with that only taking a couple of minutes as well.
Bags weren't arriving yet.

Eventually the screen declared they were arriving, but it would still be another 10 minutes or so until they started to, very, very, slowly, arrive.

Koror joined the belt, funny as that would be my next flight.

In the end I had to wait 40 minutes at baggage claim and plenty of people from the London flight were still there after I left. Very slow, especially since, ironically, it was advertised that Taoyuan got a Skytrax award for best baggage delivery.
Anyway, that concludes this flight report. Thanks for reading.