Review of EVA Air flight from Bangkok to Amsterdam in Premium Eco

Hey all,

Originally we were planned to return home via Hanoi and Paris with Vietnam Airlines the day earlier, however my wife requested whether it was possible to upgrade our ticket to a Premium Economy or Business Class seat as the economy seat was becoming quite uncomfortable for her given her state of pregnancy. 

At first I received a few contradictory mails from them with some stating that it was possible, while others said that it wasn't possible, which caused obviously more confusion with Vietnam Airlines. About two days later I received a quote from Vietnam Airlines to upgrade us both to Business class for about 2.500 EUR. Upon confirming this, I received another mail about two hours later stating that there was no vacancy for two of us to be upgraded and that they kindly asked us to confirm who of us wants to be upgraded to J class.

Fed up with the confusion, speed of response and conflicting messages I received, I told my wife that I would book us a premium economy fare with EVA from Bangkok to Amsterdam for a total of 1700 EUR as it would provide us with an extra day in Thailand and would be more comfortable for her anyhow.

My wife and me decided to have a bit of a luxurious stay in Bangkok by staying in the ''Sindhorn Midtown Hotel Bangkok, Vignette Collection'' hotel, which I highly recommend though as the hotel was located in close proximity to the BTS with a street that wasn't overly crowded, yet on a prime spot in Bangkok.

As our flight would be leaving around noon and we had quite a significant amount of luggage, I decided to book us a GRAB SUV Taxi which tends to be a bit more expensive than your average taxi, yet gives you the space and no struggle to store your luggage in the taxi without being overcharged by the driver for having more than two pieces of luggage, which some of them tends to do sometimes.

The ride itself usually takes about 40 minutes to complete, however as it was quite busy on the road (odd for Bangkok?…..) it took us about an hour to actually reach the terminal itself, though we still had plenty of time to make it through.

The driver didn't really bother to ask what airline we were using for today's flight and simply dropped us off in front of the first available spot in the beginning of the terminal.

And obviously with the luck I tend to have at airports, it meant that our check-in counter is on the other end of the terminal as BR was using the S-Row for check-ins.

Given that BR had about two - three flights departing in the next two hours (Amsterdam, London & Taipei), I expected check-in to be busy, however no lines were to be found and we were checked-in in just a few minutes without any questions. No questions were asked about the visa of my wife at check-in and boarding, though we did file her details online beforehand and they didn't ask anything about the pregnancy of my wife either (as she was 27 weeks and six days pregnant on the day of flying), while BR has set a limit that you are allowed to travel without any legal document up to 28 weeks.

We decided to head straight for security right after check-in and security including immigration took us about five to seven minutes to complete. The recent changes Thailand implemented with outgoing traffic where foreigners are allowed to use the automatic passport counters definitely improved this experience and reduced the waiting times by a lot as sometimes we could have been stuck here for a solid hour to clear all procedures. No outgoing stamp is required too anymore.

As 'Premium Economy' with BR does not come with lounge access, we decided to head over to the Miracle First Class Lounge in the D-section through my Priority Pass. I noticed that Priority Pass has gone through a major overhaul in Bangkok as one can't enter the Oman Air & Air France Lounge anymore, but do gain access to Miracle's First Class lounges as of now. The first class lounges of Miracle tend to be similar to their business class ones, however the number of visitors is drastically lower, which definitely improves the atmosphere.

We decided to sit down in the aft of the lounge where the focus is more on relaxation rather than food and this part had a single kitchen isle with a few sandwiches, cereals and pastries including a coffee machine in the aft.

Fruit and drinks were also on offer here ranging from fizzy drinks to alcoholic beverages. While I did not take a photo of it, there was also an kitchen isle available for spirits in case you fancied something stronger at 10 am :).

In case someone wanted their focus a bit more on the dining side of the lounge, one can follow the hallway right down to the dining section, though you could take the food with you to any part of the lounge if you desired to do so.

In the dining section, you still could find the same fruit and drinks you could find on the other part of the lounge, yet the number of cans were more extensive here.

The spirits department in the dining section was actually more limited to the one over on our side, but ice cream and juices one could find here too.

Obviously the dining section had more food on offer and did provide you with multiple options of warm dishes that were mostly Asian focused by the time we were here with dishes ranging from Stir-fried veggies to noodle. One could find more pastries and sandwiches in the aft and they did have corn soup on offer.

 A salad bar could be found behind the wall, but felt like it was untouched at all.

And probably the best option that was on offer is the manned cooking station where one could order three to four dishes, though dishes differ depending on the time of day, but expect it to be Thai dishes that most of us will know.

With about five to ten minutes to boarding, we decided to leave the lounge as we would have liked to buy a few more souvenir and snacks with us back home and I must admit that in the many years I have been flying to Bangkok, I never departed once from the G-Pier like our flight would do today. It's also the first time I actually recognize that there is quite a large Miracle lounge right at the G-Pier on the right side of the picture below.

And here is our aircraft that was going to bring us over to Amsterdam parked next to it's sister that was shortly departing to London Heathrow.

B-16719 is a 11.1 year old Boeing 777-300ER that was newly delivered to EVA Air in May 2014 and has solely been flying with them ever since. This specific bird is able to carry up to 333 passengers in a configuration that holds 39 seats in Business Class, 56 seats in Premium Economy where we will be seated today and 238 seats in Economy.

<u style="">Boeing 777 - MSN 42103 B-16719

Serial number 42103 LN:1202
Type 777-36NER
First flight date 28/04/2014
Plane age 11.1 years
Seat configuration C39 W56 Y238 Seat
Hex code 8990E1
Engines 2 x GE GE90-115B

Boarding passes were checked by one of the ground attendants before you were allowed to head down to the gate area.

By the time we were heading down to the seating area, boarding was already fully in process and was slowly nearing it's ending. We decided to queu immediately and made our way to our seat 26H & K. Upon embarking our aircraft, we were kindly greeted by two flight attendants who pointed all of us in the right direction to our seat.

A plushy pillow, blanke and a bottle of water are placed right on the seat and are awaiting your arrival.

Legroom of course is no issue and the seat itself is equiped with a footrest and a personal IFE system. A headset, amenity kit and pair of slippers are also placed in the seat pocket in front of you.

And the view of seat 26K isn't too shabby.

A close up of the headset EVA is using for Premum Economy and a pair of slippers. The pair of slippers is unfortunately only one size and was too small to be used for my feet and the headset itself isn't too bad, though don't expect any wonders of it.

The jacket to plug your headset in can be found in the center column where one can also find an USB-A plug and a power socket.

The amenity kit is apparently created by a company called The Hunter Company that is designed by ''Formia'' which is suppose to be a international airline amenity specialist with a focus on sustainability and making most of their products out of recycled plastic.

The contents of the amenity kits aren't all that too impressive to be fair though with a branded eye mask, dental kit, body mist, lipbalm and earplugs. A chord is also provided may you want to wear that amenity kit like a handbag.

It's nice to receive an amenity kit though, but in order to be proud of your design with products that could be added by any other simpleton and to announce that it is created by an airline amenity specialist is simply a way to oversell your product….

The whitish colour of the cabin combined with the colour choice of the seating makes the cabin feels very dull and BR could have done much more to spice it up and make it more memorable in order to complete their image.

The literature one could find in the seat pocket in front of you is a safety card of the correct type of aircraft, a sickbag and a sky shop in case you wanted to buy something duty free.

No individual air vents are equiped in this aircraft and are basically depended on the flight attendants of the day about the temperature of the cabin.

Eventually pushback was engaged right on our scheduled departure time for an on-time departure to Amsterdam.

Waiting behind a KLM 777 to depart to Amsterdam too when I spotted this 787 of Korean Air in it's new livery and I may be one of the few that does not like their new livery. It just doesn't scream ''Korean'' and makes them way to similar to KLM or Tuifly if seen from a distance.

About fifteen minutes past our scheduled depature time we were rolling for departure from Runway 20L.

While departing from Bangkok, I decided to take a quick peak through the IFE System which offers plenty of choice for movies, series, music and games to entertain you on a 12 hour flight to Amsterdam. It was quick to respond and easy to handle and I love the fact that they are using background photos of the destination of the aircraft.

While you are able to use the IFE screen by touch, a remote is also available in your seat as the IFE is quite a distance from your seating position.

The footrest that is installed can be seen below and I can imagine being quite handy for shorter people, however it doesn't add any value to me with me being 6'' (183cm) tall and is more often a bother to me than useful. I also tried out the slippers as you can see, but by this point I found out that they were simply too small for me.

Once at a safe altitude for flight attendants to be able to move around, a cold and refreshing towel was handed out to us.

When I was given the towel I was kind of expecting this shit quality towels one could expect from European carriers, however the towel though not warm was thicker than I expected.

The headset upclose isn't the best in terms of noise reduction, however is many standards above the one you are getting in Economy and offers somewhat of a passive noise reduction.

About 25 to 30 minutes into the flight, the flight attendants came by to provide us with a drink and snack service. We were given a bag of mixed nuts & dried fruits and a choice of drink. I opted for some plum wine, which I absolutely adore.

Sipping my plum wine while enjoying the view below.

Also noticing that the pilot was doing his best to avoid any build-ups to make it more pleasing to us.

About 90 minutes into the flight, the flight attendants started their food service and it was also my first time to verify whether I had a clean table or not. It did pass the test, however the table wasn't as sturdy as I would have liked.

Given that I was the last in the cabin to be served, the flight attendant apologized to me stating that they only had one dish left and that they only could serve me the Japanese Chicken & Rice as they ran out of the Beef Goulash with Mashed Potatoes. She sincerely apologized to me for that, but I kindly told her not to worry at all as I would have chosen the Japanese Chicken & Rice anyhow.

She smiled and asked whether I wanted another plum wine (she remembered) and gave me two glasses of plum wine as an apology anyway.

The main dish as I said was a Japanese chicken and vegetable stew with steamed rice served with an appetizer of Duck Foie Gras, Seared Tuna with Salmon Roes and Pesto Orzo Salad. It also came with a hot bun with butter and cuts of seasonal fruits and was served with real cutlery.

I must admit that I was impressed with the catering for this round as the dishes tasted great with the appetizer being the star for me.

About 20 minutes later when flight attendants noticed that all passengers were finished with their meals, they came by to provide us with our desert and coffee/tea round. A chocolate flavoured ice cream from été dairy.

It took another thirty minutes or so for flight attendants to come by and clean our tables and instructed passengers to close their window blinds. I literally do not understand why they would instruct us to close it during a day flight as I haven't seen a sole person in our cabin to actually take a nap to be fair.

In the end I also noticed that the cabin was a bit colder than it used to be before and decided to unpack the blanket. The blanket was quite thick and was actually pretty good with a nice pillow that was actually useful this time as it had enough strength.

Decided to pay a visit to the lavatory about four hours into the flight and I must admit that the toilet was still clean and well maintained by the flight attendants, however not a lot of amenities were available with just a few lotions to cancel out your bad human odours.

Flight attendants have been regularly walking by handing our complimentary water and juices for those who were thirsty throughout the flight and about seven hours into the flight they came by to serve us a creamy mushroom ratatouille calzone.

It wasn't the best snack I can imagine, though it was a nice gesture and was actually quite filling.

While having my calzone, I was curious to what kind of drinks EVA air is actually offering to Premium Economy passengers when I found that they serve us also their Evergreen Special. I rang the ''call to a flight attendant'' button and was attended to in just a matter of seconds when I made the request for this drink.

It took them about five to ten minutes or so to return and provide me with their signature dish (which is a cocktail made out of Melon Liquor, Sprite & Vodka). I must admit that I wasn't a huge fan of the drink myself, but can totally understand that some other do.

At this moment passengers were still instructed to keep the blind closed with an occassional peak of passengers,

Nine hours into the flight, the toilet was still clean, so well done to BR's crew.

Cabin crew came around about two hours prior to landing to provide us with a towel again and now it was a hot one, though same type of towel as before.

At this point the lights came on again and without twitching twice I decided to open my window blind when we were overflying Czech Airspace.

Given that we were the last one to be served on the first round, the same flight attendant came to us about 90 minutes to landing with the request what we would have like for breakfast. She gave us a choice between an Capsicum omelette with Sausage & Roasted Potatoes or Pineapple and Chicken fried rice.

Knowing how bad Omelettes can be on flights, there was no doubt with me and I decided to go for the Pineapple & Chicken Fried Rice that was served with a hot but rather poor looking croissant, some cuts of season fruits, yoghurt and an appetizer of ''Beef Bresaola and Smoked Chicken with Cheese'.

She asked whether I like some coffee or tea. When I asked her whether it was possible to have a beer, she kindly told me that she will bring it to me when she is finished with her round and asked whether I want a cup of coffee or tea right now. I asked for a cup of coffee.

While the first round of food was actually quite enjoyable, the breakfast round was decent, but a bit disappointed as the main dish lacked in flavour and spice and barely tasted any form of pineapple.

And about ten minutes, the flight attendant returned to provide me with my requested beer.

Clean up was engaged about 30 minutes prior to landing and flight attendants provided us with a small lemony snack just before our descent into Amsterdam, which again I think is a nice gesture and at a perfect timing to provide us with a possibility to counter the pressurential difference in your vortex.

It didn't take long after the clean up to be in approach to Amsterdam's Runway 18C resulting in us touching down about 36 minutes ahead of schedule.

With a rice of about 8 minutes or so we were parking next to a 787 of Korean in it's old livery and much better than the new one :).

Disembarkation followed soon after and went by class where flight attendants were obstructing other passengers from continuing their path till that cabin in front of them was empty, however unfortunately I couldn't get a better shot of our aircraft as the picture of our bird was obscrupted by those werid small dots on the window. It's been a pleasure B-16719!

Immigration took me no time as I could skip the line via the facial recognition, however it took my wife about 40 minutes to clear. I told her already that I will go ahead and clear it and collect our luggage which appeared on belt about 35 minutes past our disembarkation. By the time I collected my luggage, my wife just cleared immigration.

Eventually we decided to head straight for the busstop for the bus that is going to bring us over to the long parking area P3 in order for us to pick up our car and head home after this short but wonderful trip.

This concludes my Asian trip for 2025 and thanks for stopping by!