Review of EVA Air flight from Taipei to Shanghai in Business

This series covers a recent trip to Shanghai, please refer back to Part 1 for the background.

Having arrived on BR17, there were 3 options available on BR to get to Shanghai (2x TPE-PVG and 1x TSA-SHA). There are also HO and CA code-shared flights midday, but BR doesn't offer these directly booking through them. The option with the shortest layover is BR712 operated by a B77W, which arrives into Shanghai at noon offering plenty of time to reposition before rush hour picks up. The routing for this trip is:

This report will cover the flight from Taipei-Taoyuan to Shanghai-Pudong and a look at the BR Infinity Lounge at TPE.

booking

At the time of booking, there was an abundance of window seat options left so I picked a seat in the larger forward J cabin. Since there is a lavatory behind 6A and 7K is missing a window, I opted for 6K. The flight would go out close to 100% full in J.

Pre-flight

Exiting the gate from BR17, there was a board with connecting flight information posted. With over 3h until my next flight, there was no rush today despite the 1h delay arriving into TPE.

After recirculating back into the terminal, I start my walk back towards the center of T2 where the lounges are located.

The lounges are all located upstairs, which is also where the food court is. The lower level is exclusively shops in this area.

Upstairs, there is a clearly labeled map showing the locations of all the lounges and restaurants. There is no shortage of lounges available since the Oriental Club Lounge and Plaza Premium are both accessible by PP. BR has 4 lounges, but only 2 are accessible with my credentials (Infinity and Star). SQ also has a lounge, but only opens later in the day to serve their flights.

The Infinity and Star are co-located across from the more exclusive Garden for BR Diamonds. Entering the lounge, agents are there to greet you at the glass doors scanning your boarding pass and directing you either left to the Star or right to the Infinity. I immediately went up to the desk and requested a shower. The agent informed me the wait time was 1-2h and asked if I would be willing to take a shower on the Star side (these lack toilets) if it were available sooner. I swapped my boarding pass for a buzzer and headed in.

BR Infinity Lounge

Heading into the Infinity side of the lounge with its eclectic design. The lounge was already at maximum capacity and I didn't see a single empty seat so I just left the lounge to peruse the duty free area downstairs for 45 minutes to kill time waiting for my shower.

Returning to the lounge, it was still completely full. I went to the buffet and grabbed a couple of items and went to look for a seating option. After 3 loops, nothing was open until I noticed a lady getting up to look at a phone at a counter seat. I politely asked her if I could use the seat since she was blocking the seat to just charge her phone while she sat somewhere else (highlighting the lack of charging ports in this lounge). She eventually conceded and took her stuff away giving me a seat at the counter.

BR's buffet is not the greatest, I just grabbed a couple of dim sum items and some beverages to kill the time until my buzzer went off. Part 4 will have a more detailed look at the buffet since the lounge was less busy during that visit.

The Infinity side of the lounge only has 4 shower suites and I was escorted to the "Smile Zone."

The shower suites have large vanity areas complete with amenities.

The shower and toilet with Toto washlet. The shower contains L'Occitane products.

After my shower, the lounge had thinned out significantly since the first block of regional flights departed. I grabbed some more drinks and obliged to try the local Buckskin offering.

Pre-flight

About 30 minutes before boarding, I left the lounge to roam around the airport. There is an observation deck at TPE, but it is landslide so it will be featured in Part 4. I like the large artwork adorning the airport.

I walked all the way down to C1, before heading back towards my gate at C7. It wouldn't be TPE without the giant Sanrio store.

Our flight today would be operated by B-16738, a 2016-built B77W in BR's 77B configuration featuring a 39J 56W 258Y with 3-4-3 in Y.

The seating area at the gate.

The gates offer excellent views of your aircraft, but the blue glass is a negative.

Since the gate agents weren't there yet, I took a seat and waited for boarding to be called.

flight

Boarding started at 09:24, a minute ahead of schedule. They used 3 lines to process passengers and I was quickly down into the jet bridge.

Entering L1, the purser was there to welcome me onboard and directed me through the galley towards my seat.

A look at the forward J cabin, which has 23 seats across 6 rows on this 77B configuration. As you can see, FAs were already busy getting passengers settled in as they arrived.

Once the FA was done helping 1K, she escorted me back to my seat before settling in the passenger in 7K. Since she was standing next to my seat, so here is a picture of 5K instead. Pre-placed on the seat were pillow and headsets. There were no slippers at the seat and blankets are available on request. I thought the slippers would be brought out later, but they never were and when I asked the FA later when she was passing out menus, she seemed surprised that no one received them. Pretty poor by BR to oversee placement of slippers at their own hub.

The seat pitch is of course excellent. To the side of the foot rest is open storage compartments.

Immediately after settling in, the FA for my row came to introduce herself and asked me what I would like to drink for pre-departure beverage. The options were sparkling wine, water, or juice. When I asked what juice they had, she said it was dragon fruit and recommended it. I saw her pour it in the galley and it came from a non-commercial plastic jug confirming it is fresh. She returned promptly with my drink and scented towel.

The IFE screen is certainly not HD, but of acceptable size/resolution. As is the case with a lot of reverse herringbone seats, it needs to be folded for take-off/landing.

Everything you need to access is just off your shoulder with universal AC outlet, 2x USB-A ports, headphone jack, reading light, and IFE remote. The storage is large enough for a laptop, but I  prefer a closed design to help keep small items from falling out.

The seat controls.

The foot cubby is very large in these seats, but won't be used on this short flight.

On the aisle side is a pop-up armrest that can also provide additional privacy when sleeping.

Behind the seat in front is located a small pocket containing the literature: safety card, airsickness bag, and Sky Shop catalog.

No individual air vents on their B77Ws.

The FAs performed an initial pass of the cabin distributing menus. They then came up the aisle taking meal/drink orders. The FA confirmed my pre-ordered meal and asked me what I wanted to drink with my meal and if she should wake me up if I fell asleep.

On this short regional flight, there are three selections for main course.

In addition to the in-flight menu options, there are also 3 additional options available for pre-order online, which opens 21 days before departure. Flights ex-TPE get to tap into the celebrity chef menus.

The drink menu. Despite the expected drop off in terms of quality from long-haul, there is still a very substantial diversity of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks for such a short flight.

The view from my window is of a B77W in the old livery heading to AMS.

The artwork in cabin is a nice touch highlighting Taiwanese culture.

The front door closed at 9:48. The ability for Asian carriers to board wide-bodies in ~20 minutes is such a sharp contrast to the laborious process of boarding planes in the US. As we prepared for our push back, the safety video played on the monitors.

A BR A321 and NX A320 departing as we await our GE90s to start up.

We finally started our taxi at 10:05 taking us past a SL B737-800 awaiting departure for DMK.

As we continued our taxi, the BR A330-300 in Celebration Flight special livery taking off.

We pulled into the queue for runway 23L behind a JX A330-900neo, who was letting a CX A330-300 arrive from HKG.

JX's livery is quite good as they turn to align for departure.

Our turn to align onto 23L.

Before our GE90s spool up, a last chance to look at the CI B744 graveyard.

Spool up and take off from Taoyuan:

We took off at 10:26 to the south and immediately banked right to make our u-turn towards Shanghai on a grey day in Taiwan.

The low clouds cleared as we exited the Taiwanese coast to start our run north.

Waiting for service to start, a quick introduction to the IFE called Star Gallery. The interface is intuitive to navigate, but the content is very light in content. For such a short flight, the TV content is likely more relevant and it is equally as sparse as the movie content. The plane is also Wi-Fi enabled, but I was never able to connect.

The Thunder headphones, which are the same as long-haul. These are decent and completely passable as an alternative to personal devices.

For a <90 minute flight, the moving map (Voyager 3D) was the only thing I used. They project 623 miles, which is ~200 miles longer than a linear route so we will have some twists and turns along the way up the East China Sea.

With the short flight time, the crew was into the aisles just 15 minutes after takeoff to start up service. It was interesting to watch since we had 5 FAs working our cabin and they didn't work by zones, but by responsibility with each FA performing a different function to maximize efficiency. Linens were laid first.

Three FAs converged on me in parallel. One laid down the meal tray, which was then immediately followed by the second pouring my champagne, and the third placing an ice cream on my table.

The tray contains the hors d'oeuvre: Marinated Salmon with Beet Root and Cucumber with Asparagus in Cream Sauce along with a cup of fresh fruit.

Warm breads were then offered from a basket to accompany the Isigny Ste Mère butter. I took a piece of onion bread.

My pre-ordered main was Braised Pork Belly with Preserved Vegetable served with Steamed Rice.

BR's cutlery is very good with large handles that are easy to grip.

Haagen-Dazs for dessert, which a small metal spoon is provided for.

As soon as I had finished my tray, it was removed and I was asked what drinks I wanted with my dessert. A scented towel and Kavalan whisky were soon brought out. Distributing the ice cream with the meal tray kind of makes sense, it was actually at an edible temperature by the time the meal was concluded.

After finishing my dessert, an Illy espresso to cap off the service as the cabin was beginning to be prepared for landing.

As the cabin was prepared for landing, we had to watch a lengthy video from China Customs.

As the service concluded, the purser came down the aisle and thanked each passenger and offered candies from a tray.

The cloud coverage broke and we were left with a nice view over Ningbo. I think the runway just left of the Yongjiang River is Ningbo Zhangqiao Airbase.

Crossing into the Hangzhou Bay.

The massive Dayushan Island Oil Refinery.

Donghai Bridge that spans 32km connecting Pudong with Yangshan Port, which was built to increase the capacity of Shanghai to surpass Singapore as the busiest container port.

Wind farms along the bridge.

Crossing into Pudong.

Flying past Dishui Lake and all of the resorts.

We flew right past PVG and entered the Yangtze Delta. Pretty interesting being able to watch the boats navigate their way in from above.

Crossing over Hengsha Island as we prepare to make our u-turn to approach PVG from the north.

The Shanghai Yangtze River Tunnel and Bridge as we cross the mouth of the Yangtze River.

Fantastic views of the Port of Shanghai operations on Changxing Island.

Despite the clear weather on the coast, the city center is still hazy obstructing views along the Huangpu River, but you can still see the outline of the Pearl if you look carefully.

Great aerials in our short final on a clear sunny day in Pudong:

After all that excitement, we landed at 11:51 about ~15 minutes ahead of schedule on runway 16L. We started our taxi back to T2 behind this HO A320.

Our taxi took us along 16R offering spotting of various local wildlife departing.

KY B737-MAX8, one of only two in their fleet.

MF B737-700, a rare 737 aircraft type for them since they only have 6 left.

SC B737-800.

MU A350-900.

KE A330-300 landing as a CA A330-200 taxies by.

The Follow Me car leads the way.

A rare sight, SU B77W heading back to SVO.

HU B787-900 (B-6998) in the All Red special livery.

We pull into our gate after a ~15 minute taxi with NZ and CX in the distance.

The jet bridges were racing each other, but 2L engaged first so we were instructed to head back to deplane.

My first look at our plane from non-blue glass.

Back to the land of HSBC as we head towards immigration.

Mid-day, PVG is a ghost town since North American and European carriers operate primarily in the morning/afternoon. I was quickly through to the baggage claim in a matter of minutes.

We will be at Belt 24. The only other international traffic mid-day is flights from Jeju, Hong Kong, and Narita.

After a decent wait, the bags started to circulate and I like how Chinese airports are starting install these monitors to watch the baggage handlers.

My bag never arrived as the last bags circulated. I checked the Air Tag I had in it and it showed it was last seen in SFO, which was very suspicious. I had to walk over to the lost luggage counter and fill out all the paperwork and they told me it should arrive on BR712 the next day and should be at delivered to my hotel by that night. I didn't receive the suitcase until ~60 hours later, but luckily it arrived the night before I flew back to avoid further complications. When it arrived, it had luggage tags from BR7 so it never made it onto my flight from SFO. I have no idea how they can screw up this bad at SFO's baggage handling. My reimbursement claim to BR was promptly handled.

After the time it took to wait for the final bag to come off and process all the documents at the lost luggage center, I finally was able to exit through customs almost 2 hours after landing. I quickly found my driver and was off.

I will leave off this series here as I begin my stay in Shanghai. Thanks for stopping by!

flight details

EVA Air, BR712
Equipment: Boeing B777-300ER [B-16738, delivered June 2016]
Departure: 09:55 (ATD: 10:26)
Arrival: 12:05 (ATA: 11:51)
Flight time: 1:26