Hello everyone, welcome back to another (shorter) flight review. As a few reviews from my pre-flight report days (unfortunately) suggest, I must add a short disclaimer apologizing in advance for a less extensive review today, as this is one from a while back before discovering the site. Nonetheless, I was looking back and thought I’d share this flight as it sheds some light into a different option flying between PEK and TPE to somewhat create a comparison with my CA flight on the same route. That review already published.
Today, we’re taking EVA aboard its A330-300, let’s get going!
I arrived to an outrageously busy T3 check-in hall Given my flight (was supposed to) depart around noon, this collided with the bulk of CA’s international destinations. On the plus side this meant extensive widebody plane spotting post-security, on the other this meant extensive queues at security and volume in the lounge.
Luckily, the line over at the EVA check-in wasn’t nearly as long, and we were quickly in. Security, as expected. Took a long time given the queues, but my excitement knowing all the widebodies waiting for me helped ease the mood.
Upon entering the terminal, I immediately ran over to check out the rows upon rows of CA widebodies waiting for action. Here are a few of the highlights.
There were also quite a few foreign carriers on the tarmac, noon is definitely the peak time to plane spot here at T3.
A quick story: Two days before my flight, On May 27th, a United jet bound for SFO began catching fire whilst taking off out of PEK. Luckily, no one was hurt and the plane promptly stopped and was set for maintenance. There are actual videos taken by passengers that you can find online, genuinely a miracle the plane didn’t take off, the danger is unthinkable. If you look in the distance where the arrow is pointing, you can see the Boeing 777 sitting in the distance. I’ll have a closer shot of it nearing takeoff. It was kind of cute how it felt that the plane was like a misbehaving child now sent in the silent corner.
Anyways, back to the trip. Business class tickets on EVA grants access to the CA J lounge, and I hopped on over to grab some food from the buffet and the make-to-order noodle bar.
There is an extensive review on this lounge in my PEK-TPE review on Air China. One of my favorite aspects of the lounge must be the tarmac views from up above, which also allows you to see planes taxing on their way to park.
After a quick lunch, I headed down the escalator and began my journey over to the gate. Passing by a Star Alliance CA livery on the way.
Here, the first glimpse of the Airbus A330-300 taking us over to Taipei today.
China Airlines, another one of Taiwan’s carriers, also offers the same route but on a narrow body. Starlux being the only one out of the three Taiwanese carriers not currently flying to Mainland China.
Boarding soon commenced, and I was down the jetbridge.
The first glance of the cabin, in a 2-2-2 configuration. My apologies for not getting a clearer shot as I was late to board on today’s full J cabin. After helping an elderly lady with her suitcase, I took my seat over at the window.
The seat was very spacious despite being in close proximity to your neighbor. As a widebody is expected to, the seat fully reclines into a bed.
Behind me on the left side was the cup holder, which I felt was a strange place to hold it since you needed to fully twist your body and reach back to grab it. I guess it’s somewhat easier to reach if you’re lying down, a strange placement, nonetheless. On your left side is the charging port and hand controller for the IFE.
My apologies for not doing a deep dive into the IFE as I spent most of this flight playing some single-player soccer game on my phone. WiFi was also available for J passengers free of charge, and that was something else distracting me from using the IFE.
The crew then came by with welcome drinks along with wet towels.
There are also seat controls located near the central table, a very old fashioned setup.
My apologies again for not getting a shot of the menu, but to compensate I’ll include both my meals from this flight and the return flight also on EVA J, as I don’t plan on making a fully separate review for that.
We shortly began taxing, and I snapped a better shot of the United 777 sitting in the silent corner awaiting maintenance. Again, just thank goodness everyone remained safe after the incident. I’ve heard criticism that United aren’t showing any love to Beijing by continuously sending their decade-old fleets.
Taxing at PEK usually takes some time since T2 and T# merge into one centralized runway space. Today was no different, as we had a near 40-minute delay. Finally, we took off at 14:18, on our 3 hour 14-minute journey to TPE.
The crew quickly began service as soon as the seatbelt sign turned off, and my starter was presented. For a three hour flight, this was incredible. Duck (or it might have been goose) liver pate with a crabmeat tartare and purple cabbage. Pate and crab, this could have made a F class appetizer. The garlic bread was also incredibly toasty and soft. For my drinks, I took a diet coke and a gin and tonic, since it’s 5 pm somewhere right?
The crew were also happy to borrow me a pen when asking to fill out arrival documents. A dental floss pack also came with the utensils, pictured on the very left of the next picture.
For my main, I went with the braised chicken and mushroom rice with vegetables. Now, this wasn’t as glamorous as the appetizer. PEK, and more notably CA, traumatized my childhood whenever I was served an inflight meal with rice that resembled a rice crispy treat in the sense it was literally a block without any of the sweetness of a rice crispy. The rice was always extremely hard and tasted like it had been left out for days. Unfortunately, the delicious meat couldn’t fully cover the PEK catered rice block. The sauce did help to some extent, but you’re always in for a curveball with PEK catering.
Finally, I was offered a fruit plate with kiwi, pineapple, dragon fruit, watermelon, and melon balls. All fruit was very fresh. The highlight was the dessert, orange and chocolate Madeline style cake.
As promised, this was the meal service on my return flight: the starter was smoked duck breast and cut scallops, again, scallops just like the crab and pate being very high-end ingredients for J.
The main was a fish dish with egg-rice, and you can notably see the different in quality of rice, far higher catered out of TPE. EVA knows how to make a strong sauce to mix with rice, and this was also very delicious.
For dessert, another fruit plate but with Haagen Dazs ice cream instead of the cake.
My return flight was far emptier than the first one, and I'll add this quick shot of my seat, easier to see the details without a neighbour. The first row does come with the bonus of a large table area and an ever slightly larger footrest.
Meals delicious on both legs, with bonus points for TPE catering.
A forward shot of the cabin.
With meal service completed, the remainder of this flight was rather uneventful. We began out descent an hour or so later, and was greeted by the gorgeous green fields of Taipei. This was my first time descending into Taiwan during daytime, and I can probably say there hasn’t been a prettier landing anywhere in the world.
We parked next to another Star Alliance livery, this time for EVA.
There was an extensively long line upon arrival, which tends to be the norm at Taoyuan due to an additional securitty screening of everyone's bags being mandatory. Some points lost on arrival airport efficiency, but of course to no fault of Eva.
