A Mixed Bag - EVA Air 787-10 Business Class (TPE-HKG)
Flight Details:
Aircraft: Boeing 787-10
Registration: B-17801
Flight Number: BR871
Route: TPE-HKG
Date: 21/05/2025
Class: Business Class
Price: Price: 85,000 Aeroplan points + Fees (65CAD) (Includes a previous flight from MXP-TPE)
Takeoff time: 17:16 (TST)
Landing time: 18:54 (HKT)
Total flight time: 1 hour 37 minutes
Seat: 9A
Introduction:
After enjoying a full day in Taipei to adjust my jet lag, I was headed back to Hong Kong on EVA Air’s 787-10. EVA Air consistently flies 3–4 flights with wide-body jets (mainly the B787s and A330s) daily, which is half of their total (7–8) daily flights to and from Hong Kong.
With such a positive experience on my first sector, I was looking forward to this flight, though was mainly looking forward to be home after 2 weeks of travelling.
EVA Air’s lounges in Taipei are nothing to write home about; they are even worse than the Lufthansa lounge at their hubs. I stayed at the lounge for a bit before making the long trek to the gate.
For some reason, the gate was at Terminal 1. EVA’s operations and lounge are primarily at Terminal 2, and I ended up walking 20 minutes to the gate.
I arrived minutes before general boarding was meant to start. Two minutes after arriving at the gate, they announced that the flight was delayed for 20 minutes. This might be a bit pretentious but why not announce the delay earlier for business class passengers so we wouldn’t have to make this trek so early? The inbound flight had landed around the time I checked in, so there was plenty of time to make an announcement.
The flight time was extra long today due to the delay and arriving into HKG during peak hours for inter-Asia flights. We landed one hour after we were initially scheduled to land. Luckily, baggage claim was quick.
Seat/Cabin:
The seat is the same Vantage XL seat as on the B787-9, with two more rows of seats, totalling 34 seats fitting the entire first cabin. I was seated in a true window seat, 9A. While the economy cabin looked full, the business class cabin was not, with around 70% of the window seats occupied and none in the middle aisle seats, which adds to a more private cabin.
Food:
I have a theory that Cathay Pacific’s Taipei catering is superior to their Hong Kong catering, so I was looking forward to the meal served. I ordered the peppered beef with rice with a glass of red. This was a standard business class meal and was nothing to write home about. Given my own self-created high expectations, I was a bit disappointed.
Service:
The service on this flight was not to the expectation that I had after the previous flight. While the flight attendants were nice and courteous, they were cold, forgetful, and lacked coordination.
Final Thoughts:
As the title states, this flight was a mixed bag. On the one hand you are still flying a premium level Asian airline which has a floor to its quality. On the other hand the delays, lack of communication, lacklustre meal and service after an amazing experience on my long-haul flight was so contrasting. The expectations created in the previous flight were simply not met. On this route where there is plenty of competition (from the likes of China Airlines and Starlux in Taiwan, and Cathay Pacific in Hong Kong), this product really didn’t stand out. I would not be looking forward to flying EVA intra-asia on Business.