Airline review: EVA Air B777-300ER business class, Taipei to Amsterdam (via Bangkok), part 1

Not all business class flights are good - my review of EVA Air B777 Royal Laurel class, Taipei (TPE) to Bangkok (BKK)
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01. Trip report introduction
02. SAS A320 business class, Stockholm to London
03. SilverKris Lounge, Heathrow
04. Thai Airways A380 Royal First class, London to Bangkok
05. Thai Airways Royal First Lounge, Bangkok Suvarnabhumi
06. Thai Airways A330 Royal Silk (business class), Bangkok to Taipei
07. Pacific Business Hotel, Taipei
08. Photo Essay: Taipei
09. The Infinity Lounge by EVA Air, Taoyuan Airport
10. EVA Air B777-300ER Royal Laurel (business class), Taipei to Amsterdam (via Bangkok), part 1
11. EVA Air B777-300ER Royal Laurel (business class), Taipei to Amsterdam (via Bangkok), part 2
12. Steigenberger Airport Hotel, Amsterdam 
13. SAS A320 business class, Amsterdam to Stockholm
14. Trip summary
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Taipei (TPE) to Amsterdam (AMS) via Bangkok (BKK)

Date: 2018-10-06
Flight number: BR75
Aircraft: Boeing B777-300ER
Registration: B-16713
Age of aircraft: 9 years
Duration of flight: 17:44 (gate to gate, including 1:52 on the ground in Bangkok)
Seat: 6G (business class)

Seat map with my seat (6G) in red. Courtesy of Seatguru.

Ugh... I had already written this whole post when it disappeared. Maybe EVA Air have a bunch of Taiwanese hackers on the lookout for bad publicity, and took it down before I could hit "Publish"? Oh well, it's not the longest blog post of this trip report, so I guess it could be worse. However, a word of caution: This will probably be the most complaining post, so if you find it too complaining, feel free to stop reading and wait for the next post. Originally, I had intended to write one single post about this whole flight form Taipei to Amsterdam, but as it turned out, the two legs of this flight felt like completely different trips, so I'm writing two separate posts as well.

One of the reasons that made it feel like two completely different flights was that I got two different seats. I had seat 6G for this flight, and although I kept checking EVA Air's website almost on a daily basis before this flight, the window seats were all taken. However, the friendly check-in agent at Taoyuan saw that seat 10A would be free from Bangkok, and asked me if I would like to change seats there. Yes please! So as it turned out, I actually had a window seat on the longer leg of this trip.

Curbside at TPE

Approved cabin baggage *phew* (Actually, EVA Air have stricter rules than most other airlines I've flown with, but I knew that beforehand, so I took a small cabin bag on this trip)

No remarks for BR75 to Amsterdam - hopefully we'll depart on time!

After spending a little time in the lounge, I headed to the departure gate where our plane was already waiting. There were no remarks on the departures board, and boarding started on time. Things were looking good this far, and since I only had a one hour connection at Amsterdam, I was keeping my fingers crossed for an on-time departure. Boarding was smooth, but then things started to take a turn for the worse. 

Ready to board

Here we go!

The cabin felt fresh, and the seats offered a lot more privacy than I had expected. But the atmosphere was really stressful. The flight attendants were running here and there, and despite being many, seemed extremely rushed. One of them showed up at my seat after a while to offer a cold towel and asked if I wanted juice or water. Now, I probably would have chosen apple juice anyway, since it was early morning, but in the other aisle, the passengers were already gulping fancy champagne. No amenity kits were handed out (but they were in Bangkok).

Seat 6G - mine for the leg to Bangkok

This will come in handy - I was planning to sleep for most of this flight

Leg room was obviously great

It took half an hour before the purser came by to great us and slippers were provided, so service was a lot slower than on my previous THAI flights in first and business class. Sure, I guess that's a tough act to follow, but EVA Air are actually ranked higher in the Skytrax ratings. The purser did not speak English very well, so the passenger announcements were really hard to understand. I certainly don't expect everyone to excel with their language skills, but I'm curious to why you'd pick someone with poor English skills to make the announcements for all the passengers. There were other crew members who were way more proficient in English...

The TV screens were turned on, naturally, but they could not be switched off, and nor could the sound be lowered. I guess this contributed to the stressful atmosphere of the cabin. Sure, they need to be turned on for the safety demonstration, but before that, it was just showing commercials.

Safety demonstration video

At least the cabin felt fresh

And this apple juice was decent

We pushed back almost on time, but then we stopped in our tracks. And then we stood there. And then we stood there some more. To quote Douglas Adams; "For a moment, nothing happened. Then, after a second or so, nothing continued to happen." Half an hour after scheduled time of departure the captain made his first announcement, and explained that we were delayed because of queues to the runway.

We slowly made our way towards the runway, but things were not looking good regarding that tight connection at Schiphol. Another half hour later, the captain still hadn't made another announcement, and the lack of information was probably making me grumpier than the fact that we were delayed. This was a far cry from the SAS flight, where the captain regularly gave us information about what was happening.

After a while, we actually did take off. As soon as the fasten seatbelt sign was switched off (which for some reason took a good long while), I turned the seat into a bed and slept for two hours. And then I woke up with a throbbing headache. No water to be found anywhere near the seat. And no breakfast. The flight attendant had asked me if I wanted to be woken up for breakfast, which I did, but most of the passengers had already finished their breakfast. So much for that service... It took some time before anyone showed up at my seat, but when they did, they offered to bring the breakfast. However, that was probably the ugliest airplane food I've ever had. I forced myself to finish the surprisingly bland congee (rice porridge), as the rest was totally inedible. I couldn't even take pictures of the food, let alone eat it... But they did have Japanese matcha tea, and that cup was on the other hand one of the best things I've had on a plane. That's also when things started to take a turn for the better, as we were getting closer to Bangkok.

Oh, how I love Japanese food and drinks - this matcha was the best thing on this flight

As we started our descent into Suvarnabhumi (BKK), the captain thanked us for flying EVA Air, but didn't apologise for the delay. Well, this had actually been a horrible flight. I couldn't have imagined beforehand that travelling in business class on a Skytrax five star airline would compete with Ryanair for worst flight of the year... The whole experience was stressful (even before knowing that we would be delayed), information was scarce, service was inattentive and food was poor. Luckily, both the crew and the catering was changed in Bangkok, so the next leg of this trip was something completely different. Stay posted for that blog post!