After a peaceful and pleasant 2h or so in EVA’s The Infinity lounge, it was time to continue my journey to Seattle. This was a flight I was looking forward to, as it was my first time on a long haul EVA business class flight – I’ve only done business on regional and premium economy on long haul) – and also first time trying their 787-9 seats. My first leg from Jakarta had been scheduled as 787-9 as well, but unfortunately this changed a couple of days before departure.
I left the lounge around 35min before BR26’s departure time of 11.40pm. It was all quiet in TPE Terminal 2, with most shops closed. With EVA still operating a reduced schedule, I think BR26 may have been the last departure that evening.
BR26 was departing from gate C5, which is right at the end of corridor above, and therefore the closest C gate to the lounges. At TPE, boarding takes place one level down from the gate entrance. I made my way down with boarding already underway. There was no queue at the premium line however, and I was able to make my way onboard quickly.
As it turned out, I was the second last business class passenger to board. So much for getting clean cabin shots. Once again, I was warmly welcomed by the mostly PPE-clad crew. I made my way to my seat 5A, where a pillow, blanket and slippers were already preset on the seat.
EVA Air 787-9 Business Class seat
EVA Air has installed the Vantage XL by Thompson Aero, with customisation by Designworks, part of the BMW Group. This is a forward facing, 1-2-1 staggered layout. As with all staggered layouts, the window seats alternate between being closer to the window or closer to the aisle. My seat 5A was one of those closer to the aisle. EVA’s 787-9 has 26 business class seats (row 1 has no seats in the middle column). Rows 2, 5, 7 and 9 (no row 4 on EVA) having their window seats closer to the window, with the side console between the seat and aisle. These are definitely the best seats to select for a little more privacy, and not being exposed to the aisle. However, I believe these true window seats have less storage, as the console does not have storage underneath, unlike all other seats including those in the middle column.
The seat controls, IFE remote and the various outlets all sat on a little ‘shelf’ above the side console. The seat controls were the capacitive type, rather than physical buttons. I personally dislike capacitive buttons on airplane seats, unfortunately it seems many seat manufacturers and airlines are gravitating toward this. Perhaps it saves a few grammes per seat? At least on the Vantage XL, the buttons are positioned far enough that accidental touches are unlikely. I did appreciate that various sections of the seat could be individually controlled. There was also a massage function, though I didn’t find it particularly useful.
A second, simpler set of controls sat just below the console and tray table. These adjust the seat to preset positions for takeoff/landing, lounging and full flat, as well controlling the seat lighting and Do Not Disturb sign. The position of these buttons were useful when the seat is in full flat position, rather than having to sit upright to reach for the main controls.
Above the main seat controls, a pull-out screen could be extended to provide a little more privacy.
At the back of the console was an enclosed storage space. The headphones, amenity kit and a bottle of water were placed here before boarding.
The storage door had a mirror in the inside. There was also a hook for the headphones when not in use.
The IFE screen is an 18in touchscreen. This is a nice upgrade from that on the 777, and the picture quality seemed sharper as well. The literature pocket sat beside the IFE screen.
A coat hook is positioned at the corner of the shell of the seat in front. Personally I found the positioning rather awkward, as I found any clothing on the hook protruded too far out into the aisle. In the end I decided I rather not have passengers and crew constantly brushing past my clothes, and placed it on the console instead. I wonder if Thompson/Designworks could have shrunk the literature pocket a little, and moved the coat hook inwards.
While some staggered seats have tight footwells, I find the Vantage XL to be one of the better ones in this respect. EVA’s version of the seat was no exception. I had no problem getting comfortable when sleeping, even on my side. Admittedly, I’m not tall, so taller passengers may not share the same sentiments as I.
The tray table was stored in the side console. It was released with the push a button, and could pulled out fully after. It was a single large table in wood finish. EVA helpfully pasted a sticker with instructions on how to stow the tray table.
For sleeping, EVA distributes mattress pads after takeoff. These really help smoothen the seat surface, and makes it feel a little softer for sleeping. Looking at my photos now though, I’m wondering if I may have laid it wrong side up?!
Overall Seat Impressions
While this was my first time in EVA’s version, I have tried the Thompson Vantage XL on Qantas. EVA’s choice of colours may seem a little dull given it’s mostly shades of gray. However, I felt it was quite modern and easy on the eye. The little wooden finishes of the tray table and around the seat controls add some colour, as do the green details around the headrest and inside of the storage cabinet.
I like the Vantage XL, it’s probably my favourite staggered seat (if you don’t count the Collins Apex Suite as staggered). It’s perhaps not the widest seat, but I appreciate being able to sit and lie straight. The mattress pad EVA provides helps as well, covering the joints of the seat. I only slept around 4h on this flight, but that’s more on me trying to adjust to SEA time than any fault of the seat. That said, the seat in EVA’s guise isn’t perfect. For one, the positioning of the coat hook is a little awkward. The true window seats also have less storage, I found myself needing more of at certain points during the flight. Nonetheless, I would definitely opt for these true window seats in future still, for the additional privacy and ease of looking out the window.
Overall, there’s very little to complain about EVA’s version of the Vantage XL.
Service, Food & Beverage
As with the first leg from CGK, pre-departure beverages were brought round on a tray. I opted for a glass of champagne, which was served with a napkin reminding passengers we were travelling on a 787.
The crew member who was serving my aisle came round to introduce herself, and also took post-takeoff drink orders. I requested to continue with champagne.
We took off around midnight Taipei time. Given the late departure time, the crew commenced service quickly after takeoff. First, the crew came round to lay the tables for supper.
The usual snack of rice crackers and cashew nuts was served before supper, again in a packet with an empty bowl provided for passengers to pour it into. A champagne glass was placed on my table, and the crew returned with the champagne bottle to pour at my seat.
EVA Air serves Veuve Clicquot La Grand Dame Brut (4.5 on Vivino) on long haul routes, currently it’s the 2008 vintage, which is a fantastic champagne for business class. On Paris and New York routes, they additionally serve La Grand Dame Rose. While it’s a fairly well-known fact amongst frequent flyers, I still find it pretty amazing that EVA serves champagnes that cost in excess of SGD200 in business class!
Service then slowed down a little, with the meal service proper commencing around 20min later. Cutlery, water and a side tray with a bread roll and condiments were laid on the table.
These were all served from a trolley, as was the appetiser. This was foie gras pate with smoked salmon and champagne jelly. As with the first sector, the appetiser was served with its plastic cover.
I get that foie gras may not be to everyone’s taste (or ethics), so I’d say it’s a bold choice by EVA. Thankfully, the flavour of the foie gras wasn’t too strong, and the champagne jelly help cut through the richness of the dish. In fact, the champagne jelly was my favourite component.
Warm garlic bread was served from a basket between courses. This rendition was still fairly garlicky, but a little too thin and hard for my liking, compared to what I had coming up from CGK.
For my main course, I had made my choice online. On this flight, there were 3 “standard” choices available onboard, and 4 online pre-order only items. I decided to try one of the pre-order exclusives, “Tan’s Eight Treasure Glutinous Rice with Braised Chicken”.
The main course was served from the galley, without a cover. I’m not sure how these were uplifted, but I’m guessing these plates also had plastic covers which were removed prior to heating onboard, hence the lack of covers. Still, it’s ridiculous that it’s fine for a main on its own to be served without cover, but when it’s on a tray the foil is left on. It’s illogical and honestly, bordering on bad service.
In any case, I was expecting a glutinous rice with chicken and various “treasures” mixed inside, but when the dish came it was nothing like it. It turned out to be chunk of braised chicken served on the Eight Treasures Glutinous Rice. Taste-wise, the rice itself was a little lacking in flavour, though some braising sauce from the chicken helped rectify that. The chicken wasn’t too tough, and the vegetables still had a little crunch.
The online menu had listed dessert seemingly as a choice between a pastry of sorts, a fruit platter or cheese plate. As it turned out, all 3 were served. Again, plastic covers made their reappearance.
At this point, I was getting quite stuffed. I didn’t really like the sweet thing, while the cheese was…less said the better. I ended up only finishing the fruits, which at least tasted sweet and fresh. I also requested for a cup of Pu-erh tea, which was served in a proper Chinese tea cup. Interestingly I noticed he crew had little regard for flying conditions when serving hot beverages, as we were going through quite a bit of bumps when my tea was served.
I found supper was a little underwhelming. There was nothing particularly bad about the meal, the flavours just felt lacking. The glutinous rice didn’t seem very glutinous. The cheese and dessert were, meh. The use of plastic covers got a little annoying on this meal as well, given how many items were served covered. The entire meal service took a little over an hour from the first post-takeoff drink to dessert being served, which is I felt was decent pace given the late hour.
While EVA used to have a fairly extensive midflight snack menu, this appears to have been severely cut down. I didn’t get hungry midflight, so this wasn’t an issue. The only snack I was offered between meals was a pack of petit fours.
The second meal, which was called funnily titled “Refreshing Meal”, was served approximately 2h before landing in SEA. The food was breakfast-ish, even though we were landing in SEA at 7.30pm. I guess it was more in line with Taiwan time. For this meal, I had pre-ordered the scallop porridge online. There were no pre-order ‘exclusives’ for this meal service.
EVA used to serve a full Taiwanese porridge for the 2nd meal on long haul flights, consisting of plain porridge with side dishes. However, they seem to have done away with that for now with the single-tray 2nd meal service.
Annoyingly, it was served on a single tray, with the foil still covering the recently-reheated casserole dish. Trying to unwrap hot foil off a hot ceramic dish filled with hot porridge, really not a pleasant experience. I really hope EVA develop the common sense soon to stop serving hot food with the foil.
I found this meal a lot more satisfying than supper. The porridge was flavourful and seasoned just right, and had a reasonable quantity of scallop and mushroom. The fruits were good again, though the croissant was a little soft.
Overall, the meals felt a little below expectation. While I quite liked the porridge served at refreshment, the main for supper was not what I was expecting at all. I’m probably harping on this too much, but I really think EVA needs to do away with serving food covered. It’s unnecessary, lacks finesse, and in the case of the hot items, potentially dangerous. It’s true foil covers are still a common sight in most economy class, but the ceramics EVA uses retains heat more, so the dish itself is still too hot when served to passengers.
Service
I waxed lyrical previously about how good the service was on the leg up from CGK to TPE. I wasn’t expecting equally good service on this leg give this was a full cabin, and my thankfully my expectations proved to mostly wrong. The service was still warm, and requests were attended to with a enthusiasm and a smile. This set of crew were also reasonably flexible with service flow. An elderly couple behind me wanted to rest immediately after takeoff and dine when they woke up, this request was was accommodated without issue. For refreshment, I ordered more Pu-erh tea. I found the first cup too strong, and requested another lighter cup. This was quickly done, and the strength of the second cup was more to my liking.
My only quibble with the service was the crew on this flight were unsurprisingly not as attentive. Often empty glasses or trash on the console (used napkins, empty snack packets) were not cleared as quickly. The crew would walk by and miss them completely, which was a little disappointing. It’s not a big issue, and the crew overall performed to a very high standard.
Amenities
EVA Air provides a bunch of nice amenities on long haul flights. It’s great that they actually preset or distribute all the amenities, rather than having things “on-request”, which many airlines do to keep costs low. Prior to boarding, slippers and the amenity kit are already preset at the seat.
The slippers are Jason Wu-branded. EVA Air has been partnering with Jason Wu for a number years now, and the pyjamas (which I’m come to later) are also Jason Wu-branded.
The amenity kit is a sleek, black Salvatore Ferragamo-branded hard shell case, introduced in December 2019. I love hard shell cases, so this is one kit I’ve been eyeing for a long time. The hard shell case is given on long haul flights ex-TPE, while inbound to TPE a soft pouch is given instead.
The contents are fairly basic but sufficient. The Ferragamo-branded items are a hand cream, lip blam and body lotion. These are from Ferragamo’s Bianco Di Carrara fragrance line. Other contents were earplugs, eyeshades, hair brush, toothbrush and medium-size tube of toothpaste.
Post takeoff, the crew distributed the Jason Wu-branded pyjamas. These were the 2nd-generation versions, also introduced in Dec 2019. It seemed it was up to the crew to size up each passenger, and I was offered a L size. It was slightly on the bigger side for me, but for pyjames I prefer a loose fit anyway. I tried the top on during the flight, in my opinion this might be the most stylish airline pyjamas I’ve gotten. They were comfortable too, soft, not too thick, and they’ve held up well after washing at home. I normally reuse my SIA first class pyjamas when travelling on airlines that don’t provide, but I think I’ll have to phase them out in favour of this EVA one. They come in a handy drawstring bag, easy to pack for future travels.
Honestly for business class, the amenities EVA Air provides are top-notch. There isn’t really anything lacking, and I appreciate that everything is provided proactively.
Entertainment and Wifi
The IFE options on this flight were the same as the flight up from CGK, just on a bigger and better screen, so I won’t talk about it. Suffice to say there was a decent selection of recent releases such as Top Gun: Maverick, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Jurassic World Dominion and The Secrets of Dumbledore. TV show selection was a little poorer, with most episodes more dated.
The 787s are equipped with Wifi as well, with the same pricing plans. For reference, here’s the Wifi plans that were available for purchase:
Rest of Flight
The flight went by quickly, maybe a little too quickly for my liking. I was able to get a decent amount of sleep, enough to keep me sane after arriving in SEA but not too much to keep me awake later that night. The crew kept the lavatories tidy throughout.
One weird aspect of the flight was that the flight deck kept the seatbelt sign on throughout the entire flight. Of course this was pretty much ignored by passengers for most of the flight, except for a particularly bumpy portion when the crew had to be seated.
We touched down in SEA on time, however we had to wait on a taxiway for about 15min, ostensibly for our gate to become available. SEA opened its new International Arrivals Facility a few months back, which works a little different to most US airports. Here, immigration and customs are integrated so passengers only need to queue and talk to a CPB officer once, after collecting checked luggage. Since I have Global Entry (GE), I went to a GE kiosk first before collecting my bags. There’s a dedicated CBP line/counter for GE, where the CPB officer confirmed my identify from the kiosk records and asked if I anything to declare. This exchange literally took a few seconds and I was on my way.
Conclusion
If it’s not clear by now, let me say I really enjoy flying EVA Air. From my first experience with them many years ago, I’ve always held them in very high regard. It’s a little disappointing that Covid protocols have tempered the experience somewhat on this occasion, hopefully these will be a thing of the past soon.
The service was warm and thoroughly excellent on these 2 flights, as usually is with EVA. It’s also a testament to service culture of the crew that they have not let Covid protocols get in the way of delivering excellent service. Having heard and read many reviews of their long haul flights, I’m thrilled to finally experience it myself. From the Veuve Clicquot La Grand Dame, to the pyjamas and the amenity kit, these offerings are at a first class level. Sure, catering could do with some improvement, not least getting rid of the pesky covers, but that’s a minor blip on what was a pair of flights that surpassed my high expectations.
The hard product, though not particularly outstanding, is also very good. Given a choice, I would probably take the Vantage XL on the 787s over the original Cirrus on the 777s, but honestly there’s not much to pick between the two. Both are lie-flat, with direct aisle access for all passengers.
Overall, I enjoyed my two flights on EVA Air. Their business class – Royal Laurel in EVA speak – is a great way to get between Southeast Asia and North America. I daresay they’re even worth the detour if going to Europe. If time is not a constrain, I will take them over Singapore Airlines, any day.
Stay tuned for the upcoming instalments of this trip!
Have you ever flown EVA Air long haul business class? How did your experience go? Let me know in the comments!