China Airlines Premium Economy

My first A350 flight is with China Airlines, a Taiwanese based airline that operates a wide network across the world. The flight I have booked will be departing from Auckland Airport to Taipei via Brisbane, a 2 hour layover in Brisbane and an 18 hour layover in Taipei before continuing from Taipei to Amsterdam, a total flight time of approximately 27.5 hours each direction. A total of approximately 52 hours return flight, this will allow me to have a very deep insight into the operation of CI, their crew and the consistency on delivery.

AKL - TPE:

First impression:

As soon as I get through the door, welcomed by a friendly crew and a very dimmed cabin to match their cabin theme. I am on Premium Economy, which is a 2-3-2 configuration, with a good amount of legroom and storage area. This seat is hardshell which means you won’t recline to the person behind you, or the person in front of you getting into your way, but as a compromise when you do recline, your seat goes forward which then reduces your legroom. As a 180cm tall person, I find the legroom can get a bit tight at full recline with the leg rest up.

Since I have already eaten on my AKL-BNE flight, I've decided to not eat the main meal on the BNE-TPE leg. On the AKL-BNE leg, they offered Chicken rice or Beef with mashed potato, I went for the beef option and it is rather decent. Since the BNE-TPE leg is a longer flight, they have given me a menu (after taking my order, should be the other way round isn’t it?). Anyway, they have Braised Chicken in Sweet Bean Sauce with Egg Fried Rice or Pork in Sweet Pepper Goulash and Roasted Potato for dinner. Braised Minced Pork Preserved Vegetable with Rice Noodle or Cheese and Ham Frittata with Chicken Sausage for breakfast. I chose the Minced Pork which has vermicelli under the meat, reminds me of a favourite dish of my hometown called “Kon Low Mee”, which translate to Dry Stir Noodle (Soy Sauce stir into the noodle). Each city and country and culture does this dish differently, however I know that Taiwan cuisine doesn’t disappoint.

TRANS-TASMAN & LONG HAUL INTERNATIONAL DIFFERENCE?

During my flight from AKL-BNE, it seems to be more "Economy" in terms of service and amenities compared to the long haul international flight which comes with a more professional crew and slightly better service overall. On the long haul flight, an amenity kit is placed on the seat pocket and a pair of slippers. In their amenity kit, comes an eye mask, a toothbrush, earplug, and an interesting item that says Water Sleeping Mask? It is not too practical for me since I move around a lot and wearing an eye mask to sleep so it will just get messy. The flight is also half empty in comparison to the Tasman flight, which makes sense since Tasman flights are very popular and usually get a nearly full load. Having a neighbour free seat on a premium economy is much more comfortable as well, and whoever is my neighbour may not get their full buck worth since there’s a little issue with their seat. More about that below.

IS THERE A BAD SEAT IN PREMIUM ECONOMY?

You may be surprised that apart from the first and last row of the Premium Economy, there are still a few seats that aren’t giving you good legroom (or restricted legroom). On the aisle seat is a box right in the middle of the leg rest area that is some kind of IFE box? It is located right in the centre of the seat which means you can’t have your feet together (cross) when you slip it under the seat in front of you. A very annoying restriction which I would not be happy to get. Seat 33H is the one to avoid, if you are aware of any other seats on the A350 or B777 with this seat restriction please leave it in the comment below. The USB plug on my seat doesn’t work at all, I am not sure if it has to do with my device/cable or the power output is not high enough to charge my device.

TOILET:

The premium economy cabin comes with 1 toilet on the left side, which isn’t that spacious, probably the same size as the economy toilets. 2 hours before landing, I had another visit and the toilet is kept pretty clean. 1 hour before landing, I used the toilet again and someone decided not to flush, not that the crew can do anything about it but I do not understand the logic on that, even if it's clean tissues, people would not know where those tissues went, which is off putting since it is a public share toilet.

TPE - AMS:

AIRPORT:

After an unpleasant surprise through customs, I wasn't happy that I was just an hour away from boarding getting stuck going through customs as they had an issue with my power bank. About 10 minutes before the scheduled boarding time, we saw the crew running towards the plane, I can only assume they were running late for whatever reason it may be. Not long after, a message pop up on the monitor saying our new boarding time has been changed from 2330 to 2355 due to ground operation, not too sure what exactly that meant.

SEATING:

At 2350 they started boarding and this time I am on the Boeing 777-300ER, the hard product is the same as on the A350-900, however the seat configuration is 2-4-2 compared to 2-3-2, which is less ideal for people sitting in the middle unless you are a family or friends.

SERVICE:

As they were rushing to get the aircraft ready, the amenity kit was given after take off which is fine with me, and it is the same as what I have received on the BNE-TPE leg. Shortly after we began the meal service, with a choice of Braised Pork Chop with rice or Spinach cream chicken with pasta. For dessert there was a selection of strawberry gelato or another option which sounded like Tiramisu however I am not exactly sure. After the meal service due to a large time difference and also being past 1:30am Taipei time, I went to sleep and got up at 9am Taipei time (3am Amsterdam time), we are chasing the dark for the entire flight, firstly flying north overhead Khabarovsk before turning towards West, this flight path brought us over South Korea, Russia, Finland, Sweden, Denmark before entering into the Netherlands. Given it is a full flight and I am assuming a full tank of fuel, our initial cruise altitude was FL290, then step climb to a final altitude of FL360. The crew operating this flight has been a bit of a hit and miss for me, firstly they are speaking mandarin to nearly all passengers (or at least the ones that look Asian), however me and my seat neighbour both speak English and it took the crew nearly the entire flight to get a grasp that we do not speak Chinese and they were speaking broken English which is not very good given it is an international flight and you would assume that the crew can speak multiple languages. Secondly, maybe it is a full flight that they didn’t offer to hang my coat for this flight which takes up a large amount of space that I do not have, there's no consistency in service which is not ideal.

MEALS:

4 hours before landing, the crew came around offering snacks of either tomato chicken roll or sesame potato and mushroom burger. 2:45 hours before landing the lights came on, 2 hours before landing we were served breakfast, with a choice of Pork Meat Noodle or Tomato Mushroom Frittata with Macaroni. 4 hours before landing was my first lavatory visit, there are 2 in the Premium Economy cabin, and it gets busy at times. I waited a good 10 minutes before being able to get in. 

TOILET:

The left rear lavatory in Premium Economy is at least 50% bigger than the normal lavatory, which is great for parents who have young children or disabled people. During peak time, economy pax were sneaking into the Premium Economy lavatory, there was no crew present which makes it hard to enforce the separate cabin lavatory usage, but I would have liked it to be better enforced since we do pay over double the price for the luxury and space, I don't think the Business Class passengers would be happy if we sneak in and use the Business Class lavatory.

WIFI:

I have been trying to connect to their wifi however it has always been a miss. Once connected, you are brought over to their home page where you get the option to connect to their wifi, however the page doesn’t load. There’s a live news section where you get to read free news which seems to work fine. I am not sure if this would be the same for Business Class pax since they do get complimentary wifi. (Wifi page loads on my laptop on the return flight when I try it, doesn't work on mobile phones for some reason)

PLASTIC WASTE:

I am disappointed to see airlines not making an effort to reduce plastic usage. I am guilty of it myself, given I have a full cabin bag it is difficult for me to carry my own bottle, so I had to get their plastic cups and bottles which contributes to the extra trash. Their cutlery is plastic, the amenity kit is wrapped in plastic (totally unnecessary), their headphone is wrapped in plastic, there is a plastic bag that fit all their magazines and sickness bag, I am not sure why they are using so much plastic on their aircraft when some are totally unnecessary to begin with.

USB PORT:

This happens on both of my flight, as soon as I plug something into the USB port to charge my device, for a second my device indicated charge but after that it just doesn’t work anymore, and it doesn’t charge any of my other devices. I am not sure if it’s due to a sensitive protective circuit, but it is not helpful that I can’t charge anything. During my flight from BNE-TPE where I had an empty seat neighbour, I tried their USB port and it works fine, so it could just be bad luck.

COCKPIT VIEW:

On their IFE, there are a few options to view the flight path, there are a few options but nothing that really excites me except one, the HUD view. This is probably the most detailed cockpit information that I have ever seen in any IFE I have ever tested, it has the IAS, ALT, Turn Coordinator, Yaw indicator, AH, Drift position, HI, Ground Speed, Wind indicator and the VS. The information is not as detailed as you would get on the actual cockpit, but it is very exciting for an AV geek like myself to be able to see information about the current flight. It would be good if they add a Mach speed as well.

AMS - TPE:

Amsterdam is known for attracting a large number of tourists, which means the airport can get rather busy as well. My flight today is the CI74 scheduled to depart at 1100. After arriving at the airport around 0800, I went to get my tax refund sorted. After that, I proceed to the check in area, which to my surprise there isn't a lane for premium economy, there was a sky priority or economy, since Premium Economy is not part of Sky Priority, I had to wait in line along with the economy passengers.

After checking in, it was time to get through security, and I have never seen such a long line before. There were probably at least 1000 people queuing, although the staff are trying to get people through as quickly as they could. The security time was around 20-30 minutes, after getting through that, I have just under 2 hours until departure time. I proceeded to the Aspire lounge, I got to spend an hour to have some breakfast before rushing off to the gate (10 minutes jog?), where boarding commenced 30 minutes before departure time. There was signage for economy and SkyPriority boarding, no mention of Premium Economy again. When they commence boarding, the crew came with a laminated signage that has Premium Economy listed.

At 1100, the very last few passengers were boarding and then the cabin manager came to each passenger addressing by name, then introduce herself before providing us with the menu. She then briefs us regarding the flight time, which is around 12 hours and 10 minutes. This is the first crew that has provided such an amazing service out of the 3 previous flights. 15 minutes after the scheduled departure, we get an announcement from the captain informing us of some technical issues. We ended up getting delayed for slightly more than an hour.

We finally started pushback from our gate, about 10 minutes later at 1230, we took off from runway 18L, tracking Eastbound via Frankfurt, Baku, Lahore and Kunming. Due to the favourable wind direction, we are using the southern part of the Northern Hemisphere on this Eastbound journey instead of the Northern part of the Northern Hemisphere when tracking Westbound.

Shortly after takeoff, a bottle of water and amenity kit was given out as well.

Today’s meal menu can be found below.

The seat I am on today will be 33A, which is on the other side of the row from my AKL-AMS flights. The centre cup holder is rather filthy and the tray table is not exactly very clean either, the window is spotless though. Another issue I am having with this seat is the power outlet not working, since my laptop has great battery life, it doesn’t bother me too much, although I will not be able to charge up my phone. 

Since we are flying Eastbound, Taipei time will be 1930 when we take off, and a touchdown time of 0737.

I got some sleep mid flight after a movie since I haven’t slept for too long last night, and I will be having a full day in Taipei for the transit which I will be visiting a few other places that I haven’t been to on my previous transit.

Second meal service started at 0200 Taipei time / 1900 Amsterdam time. For dessert we have an option of Strawberry or Tiramisu, I went for Tiramisu. It is an odd time to be waking passengers up for meal service but I supposed they are doing it to allow passengers to get some more sleep until we start descending into Taipei. 

Both meals are tasty and have not found any fault with them. They always have 1 Western choice and 1 Asian choice for the flight, although not extensive I haven’t found a meal that I can complain on any of my flights with China Airlines.

At 0500 Taipei time / 2200 Amsterdam time, we got served sandwiches with a choice of Ham & Cheese or Cheese.

An hour before landing, assorted snacks were available, such as mixed nuts and biscuits.

We touchdown in Taipei at 0742 local time, an hour 7 minutes delayed.

I didn't sleep after the second meal service, since I am still in tune with Amsterdam time.

TPE - BNE:

After spending over an hour at the lounge (read), I went to the gate where we boarded 10 minutes later than scheduled but right on time for pushback which is a relief after an hour delay in Amsterdam.

After getting on board, I was really tired since it would have been about over 20 hours since I last slept. We took off using much more runway than I thought it needed (was getting a bit nervous), but we departed safely and on track to Brisbane. Flight time for this flight is about 8 hours, passing through Baguio City, Davao then the inner East coast. I skipped the first meal service but got a strawberry gelato before getting some snooze.

This is a pretty tough flight for me as I only had about 2 or 3 hours of sleep before waking up and a sneaky peek out to find the sun is actually out, although all the shades are closed since it is very early in Taipei. I am not sure what my body clock is at right now since it is an 11 hour difference between Amsterdam and Auckland but I didn’t sleep for 20 hours which can dramatically affect how my body adjusts to the new time zone (only time will tell I suppose).

2.5 hours before we arrive in Brisbane, we started our 2nd meal service, finishing 1.5 hours before landing. 

Luckily this aircraft seems to be tidier and the power outlet work, which is great since I do need to charge up my devices. There are a few empty seats and I have an empty seat next to me as well which is making things more comfortable than on the previous flight as I couldn’t use the toilet since the passenger was having the tray table out most of the flight.

This is the first time I have managed to see the wifi pricing through my laptop as it doesn’t seem to load on my phone for some reason. There are 4 packages available, the first and cheapest option is the messaging lite, which gives you 15mb of data for text or audio messaging (and 64kb/s speed) for USD$3.25; 2nd option is the 1 hour unlimited package for USD$11.95; 3rd option is a 3 hour unlimited package for USD$16.95; the last option is a 24 hour unlimited package for USD$21.95. Now based on the pricing alone, it seems like it’s either all out on the 24 hour package or using the lite package.

As my flight is around 14 hours, it doesn’t make much sense to go with a 3 hour package since it’s not too much of a price difference, however the 24 hour package doesn’t work for me either as I have a near 20 hour layover in Taipei, which means it will expire before getting on the next flight. It would have been really helpful if they would offer an 8 hour or 12 hour package, and also making the price more reasonable as nearly USD$22 for a 24 hour pass does feel a bit expensive, especially when there’s no flight in the world that can fly non stop for 24 hours. In saying that, their Auckland - London service seems to have a short layover, which may actually make it worth buying if it’s a 3 hour layover so you are not scarifying too much of the lost time.

BNE - AKL:

After a 2 hour layover in Brisbane airport, we were finally off. Since they do a crew change in Brisbane, we were met with a new set of crew. Oceania flight is always busy and it's packed on this flight as well. Before we push back, the cabin crew offered a blanket for us, and it was already unwrapped and I was assuming it was clean, but not until I found food scrap on the blanket that I realised it was used from Taipei to Brisbane flight. I immediately threw it to the side in disgust. Used blanket or pillowcase should never be reused and there's no excuse for China Airlines since they do have the resources and time in Brisbane to prepare for this Oceania flight.

The food on this leg was fine, I got a Pasta beef instead of Chicken rice, however I probably should have taken the Chicken rice since their pasta is more like a Risotto. I slept through most of this short 2.5 hour flight since I have been going for 2 days without more than 5 hours of sleep.

CONCLUSION:

Getting more than several hours of sleep on this flight comfortably definitely helps. Their Premium Economy product is decent however there’s still room for improvement and I would recommend that for anyone flying longer than 8 hours or overnight flight to use their premium economy as it is much more comfortable than being cramped in economy. The amenity kit also contributed to making me sleep better, the eye mask and earplugs help me get to sleep much easier, I am a light sleeper so if I can get a night of good sleep, I am sure it would be the same for most people. Their B777 is definitely not as great in overall comfort as the newer aircraft such as the B787 or A350, they have much dryer air which I could feel as soon as I step on board, extremely dry lips and louder engine compared to the 787 or 350.

The crew is somewhat of a hit and miss, some are extremely good while some are just average. I have not had anything negative to say for the crew so far after spending 52 hours on their flights. I do have some negative experience at the airport with the Taoyuan security which is very unpleasant (apparently CAA in Taipei have restriction on power bank but bringing it on board from other countries are fine), and of course the reuse of blanket between Brisbane and Auckland which they need to look into it and change their method, what would you have done if you are in Business Class and get a used blanket, after paying thousands of dollars (I am not sure if Business Class get a new blanket for the Oceania flight but if they do then there's no excuse for them to use old blankets for the rest of the cabins simply for paying less).

EARNING MILES:

China Airlines is part of the Sky Team alliance. You can earn miles if you have a SkyTeam frequent flyer. This flight has earned me so much that I got upgraded to Silver SkyTeam Elite status on Delta Airlines. You can read about the Delta SkyMiles (here). Delta Airlines elite holders can also enjoy some benefits when flying with China Airlines.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkQvbfexK10