Booking The Trip: A (slightly crazier) Southeast Asian Path to India
Review: P.F Changs LAX (Priority Pass Restaurant)
Review: EVA Air 777-300ER Premium Economy Class Los Angeles to Taipei
Review: Plaza Premium Lounge Taipei Terminal 2 Zone A
Review: UNI Air A321-200 Economy Class Taipei to Seoul Incheon
Review: The Millenium Seoul Hilton
Trip Photos: A Day and a Half in Seoul
Review: Korean Air First Class Lounge Seoul Incheon
Review: Korean Air 777-300ER Kosmos Suites First Class Seoul Incheon to Bangkok
Review: Le Meridien Suvarnabhumi Bangkok Golf Resort & Spa
Review: Cathay Pacific Lounge Bangkok
Review: Miracle Business Class Lounge Concourse G Bangkok
Review: Malaysia Airlines 737-800 Business Class Bangkok to Kuala Lumpur
Review: Malaysia Airlines Satellite Golden Business Class Lounge Kuala Lumpur
Review: Kuala Lumpur A330-300 Business Class Kuala Lumpur to Mumbai
Review: SpiceJet 737-900ER SpiceMax Pune to Goa
Review: Air India A321-200 Economy Class Goa to Mumbai
Review: Air India A320Neo Economy Class Mumbai to Bengaluru
Review: Air India A319-100 Economy Class Bengaluru to Mumbai
Review: GVK International Business Class Lounge West Wing Mumbai
Review: Singapore Airlines 777-300ER Business Class Mumbai to Singapore
Review: Crowne Plaza Hotel Singapore
Trip Photos: 8 hours in Singapore
Review: Singapore Airlines A380-800 NEW Business Class Singapore to Hong Kong
Review: Singapore Airlines SilverKris Business Class Lounge Hong Kong
Review: United Club Lounge Hong Kong
Review: Thai Airways Royal Orchid Lounge Hong Kong
Review: Hong Kong Airlines Club Bauhinia Lounge Hong Kong
Review: EVA Air A330-300 Premium Laurel Class Hong Kong to Taipei
Review: EVA Air 777-300ER Premium Economy Class Taipei to Los Angeles
YOUTUBE: EVA Air: Los Angeles to Taipei
YOUTUBE: UNI Air: Taipei to Seoul Incheon
YOUTUBE: Korean Air: Seoul Incheon to Bangkok
YOUTUBE: Malaysian Airlines: Bangkok to Kuala Lumpur
YOUTUBE: Malaysian Airlines: Kuala Lumpur to Mumbai
YOUTUBE: SpiceJet: Pune to Goa
YOUTUBE: Air India: Goa to Mumbai
YOUTUBE: Air India: Mumbai to Bengaluru
YOUTUBE: Air India: Bengaluru to Mumbai
YOUTUBE: Singapore Airlines: Mumbai to Singapore
YOUTUBE: Singapore Airlines: Singapore to Hong Kong
YOUTUBE: EVA Air: Hong Kong to Taipei
YOUTUBE: EVA Air: Taipei to Los Angeles
After spending some time wandering the terminal and eating at PF Changs, it was time for boarding my fight. Though I wanted to add a bit more first.
For check-in at LAX, EVA is located at Lot C at Tom Bradley International terminal which is also where check-in is for all the Star Alliance airlines that fly out of TBIT.
There’s a check-in lane for economy, premium economy, and Royal Laurel (business class) & Star Alliance Gold Members.
Even though I was in premium economy, I was able to use the Star Alliance gold/business class line but it really didn’t matter since neither had a line when I was checking in.
There were some nice flowers by the Royal Laurel check-in counters.
Now back to our review. Our plane was towed in from parking around 20 minutes before boarding started.
Boarding began with zone 1 which was for Star Alliance Gold and Business class passengers.
LAX-TPE
Boeing 777-300ER
6/1/19
Upon boarding I walked forward to the right aisle and turned right into the second section of the Royal Laurel Cabin. After you pass this second section comes the premium economy cabin.
Premium economy has 7 rows of seating in a 2-4-2 configuration.
Now keep in mind if you like windows, rows 21 and 24 are missing windows at the “window seats” so choose another row if you want a window.
Now I was seated in the bulkhead row seat 20K which in my mind is the best row in the premium economy cabin. SeatGuru labels this row yellow for having less legroom due to the bulkhead and I’d have to disagree with that. See for yourself. The above picture is my bulkhead seat 20K.
And below is a standard Premium economy seat.
I’d argue the legroom is pretty much the same with the bulkhead row actually potentially having more legroom.
Now let’s look into the seat itself. The seat is decently wide and was certainly enough for me. The seat cushion was a bit hard for my liking though it might be just right for you. The back padding was better and after some use, nicely curved into the shape of my back.
At the seat, there was a pillow, a huge blanket, and a water bottle already there.
There were some nice slippers in the pocket in front of you. They were plush and comfortable. A nice offering for a premium economy cabin.
There were also headphones that were in the pocket in front as well. So when you arrive at your seat, you should already have a pillow, a blanket, a water bottle, and then slippers & headphones in the seat pocket in front of you.
Each pair of seats has a central console where you could place drinks or other things on.
Below the console, you have a headphone jack and two USB ports, one for each seat of course.
Below the USB ports you have your power ports and life jacket. The tray table comes out of the left armrest. There’s also a button by the console which allows you to release the legrest, a feature only available on the bulkhead seats. I’ll show you this later.
Another thing to note is that there are no individual air nozzles, which I would’ve liked because I prefer a cooler cabin, though I also didn’t have a problem with the temperature. This is contrary to my Japan Airlines flight where the cabin was much too warm for my liking.
I was seated next to the massive GE-90 engine which is always a sight to see especially up close like this.
A few minutes later, a crew member camr around with menus for the flight.
The crew seemed a bit shy and didn’t talk much, but they were well-intentioned for sure.
A couple minutes after menus came around, another crew member came around with amenity kits.
These kits contain combs, toothbrush/toothpaste, lip balm, moisturizer, and even some sleep items like an eye mask and socks. EVA doesn’t exactly specify which items are provided for overnight flights, but EVA states that they provide special amenity kits for overnight flights like the one I am on. However, I find it hard to imagine they provide amenity kits on these flights and none at all on their daytime flights.
Soon enough the captain made his welcome announcements and gave us a flight time of 13 hours, 40 minutes and a cruising altitude of 35,000 feet.
These overnight flights from LAX to Asia that reach in the morning are really my favorite flights. Nothing like finishing a busy Friday, heading to LAX in the evening lounging for a bit, getting on board a flight, eating good food, and sleeping endlessly and waking up right in time for a gorgeous sunrise.
Anyways, there was some nice mood lighting that was put up during our taxi to the runway.
If there’s one thing that speaks LA, its the evening low altitude marine layer that settles in and you can clearly see just that below with the light reflecting against it.
We eventually reached the end of runway 25R which was our takeoff runway.
From there, it was a near full power takeoff.
The lights came on around 11 minutes after takeoff and the crew got to work.
Around 18 minutes after takeoff, crew cane around with packets of cool, scented paper towels. I personally prefer a cool towel to a warm one so this was just right for me.
I didn’t take a picture of it since there was really nothing to photograph but after the towels, the crew brought around a tray of water, apple juice, and orange juice before dinner. I just went with drinking more water since a plane is basically a glorified dehydrating tube.
Dinner was brought around 45 minutes after takeoff. I always like to try the international option, or whatever option is local to the country of the airline I’m flying. So in the case of this flight, looking back at the dinner section of the menu again, I went with the Asian option of three cup chicken.
One thing I can confidently say was that there was definitely more than enough food for the flight.
The shrimp was in a nice sweet sauce which was really flavorful. I find shrimp much enjoyable to eat when it’s already out of its shell, but that ultimately wasn’t too much of a problem. The cucumbers were glazed in some sort of nutty flavored sauce which gave it another flavor I enjoyed. But besides the flavor, it was crunchy and watery, just the way it should be. This wasn’t anything too elaborate, but it definitely was a good start.
The salad was also nice and big which I was happy with. It came with a nice Balsamic vinegar + olive oil mix which made for a tasty combo. the candied walnut and mozzarella was also a nice addon to the salad.
The chicken was nicely cooked. The sauce it was in was flavorful and went well with some rice. The bok choy was a nice addon, though it was barely warm. The cabbage right next to it, on the other hand, was perfectly warm and enjoyable.
The red velvet cake was chilled and tasty, just like a red velvet cake should be. There wasn’t too much frosting or too much bread. It was just what I wanted and needed for portion and flavor.
The fruits were fresh and tasty for the most part and so there wasn’t too much going on there.
At this point I was full, so I didn’t even bother with the bread.
Overall, I was quite happy with the meal. It was flavorful across the board and each aspect was enjoyable. The only downside to all of this was that during the meal service, the crew had not cleared our drink cup or towel from before the meal service, so there was a lot of congestion on the central console and the tray table during the meal. At least they asked if we wanted anything else to drink after the meal service, and I went with a nice glass of Green tea. They have the hot and cold version if you want. I went with the hot version and it was served in a paper cup.
After the meal service, as people were going to sleep, I went to check out the lavatory. For premium economy passengers, they have their own dedicated lavatory right behind row 26 and there’s nice visible signage that says “Premium Economy Only” so there’s no need to go back into economy class or forward into Royal Laurel Class for using the bathroom.
It was standard, there were some soaps and sprays, though they did have some nice flowers to add a pop of color to an otherwise colorless lavatory.
Now this is what I was talking about from the beginning about why row 20 is so good compared to the rest of the premium economy seats.
When fully reclined, row 20 is the only row to have an extendable leg rest as well as a deployable foot rest. So when the seat is reclined back and the legrest is fully extended, you get this. To extend the leg rest, as mentioned earlier, there’s a clearly labeled button right below the center console and to deploy the foot rest, there’s a black lever you can see on the leg rest itself kind of like a light switch. Flick it the other way and the leg rest will be pulled out.
I should also note wifi is available on these planes and here are the prices.
300 MB is a lot, though I wouldn’t proactively buy wifi at these prices for leisure though definitely if I had a lot of work to get done.
Anyways I got a good 4.5 hours of sleep before waking up to use the restroom. Just a few minutes later, the crew came around with a snack basket that had an assortment of snacks and a wrapped honey mustard chicken croissant with sesame seeds on the bun. I wanted to try their sandwich so I went with that.
The sandwich wasn’t anything gourmet but it was light, refreshing, and tasty.
They also came around with a tray full of………yup, you guessed it! The tray had water, apple juice, and orange juice. I opted for water.
Within minutes of being finished, the crew cleared my tray and I went for some more rest. After getting some more sleep, the crew turned the lights up 2 hours before landing for a pre-arrival breakfast. I think I got somewhere near 6-7 hours of sleep which is a complete win in my books and another reason why I love these overnight flights to Asia.
First thing as before, everyone was given refreshing towels.
Then the food was brought around.
As a reminder here were our breakfast options, and like dinner, I went with the Chinese Style breakfast.
The egg frittata was simple. It was chilled and lightly salted.
The fruits consisted of oranges and cantaloupe. The oranges were very nice and so was the cantaloupe. Its funny, of all the times I’ve eaten cantaloupe, its always been in the air. I’m not a big fan of the fruit so its not something I’ll go out of my way to eat on the ground.
The beancurd with black fungus was a very interesting appetizer but it was actually really good and probably my favorite part of breakfast.
The main course was congee and it was honestly really bland. Now that’s not a bad thing since that’s the way its supposed to be but it was bland.
There was this packet of some powdery thing which I think went with the congee so I put it inside the congee, added a bit of salt, and it made the meal a bit tastier.
This time I had the bread and it was nice and warm.
I also had hot green tea to go with my meal. As was the case with dinner the crew asked if we wanted anything to drink after breakfast and I went with a refill of hot tea and it took them nearly 45 minutes to bring it out.
Anyways, breakfast was decent. Breakfast has always been the least flavorful meal for me and that’s probably a function of the limited flavors you can explore with breakfast. That being said the breakfast was decent for what we had.
From this point until landing, the views were something spectacular.
Just before we began our descent, the crew brought around herbal chew candies and they had a unique, but flavorful taste.
Eventually, we began our descent into a mostly cloudy Taipei.
It was a very green landscape on our final approach and quite beautiful.
We had a smooth touchdown on runway 23L and a 5-minute taxi to our gate.
We taxiied into terminal 2 which is where a you could see a line of EVA Air planes parked.
And here’s a last view of the magnificent GE-90.
Overall, I was actually quite happy with this flight for the most part. The food was mostly good, all aspects of the amenities provided were great for premium economy standards so I was happy. The crew wasn’t really that interactive during the service didn’t talk much, and really didn’t smile at all, which is something that I was hoping to see more of. But with that being said, this is a good premium economy product, and, if it’s not too much more than economy, would consider it worth the extra premium, especially if you can snag that bulkhead row 20.