Trip Report: Eva Airways Business Class Bangkok to London

I'm going to be flying from Bangkok to London on Eva Air in Business Class, and not without some trepidation.

Eva Air is not a carrier many passengers would consider, however on paper it seems to be fine, with it's own dedicated lounge at Bangkok, flat beds in Business Class, and excellent catering.

Eva Air are the second largest airline in Taiwan.

When it started - back in the 90s - flying from Taipei to London it had to include a refuelling stop in Thailand. And those flights remain, as a rare fifth freedom flight.

Hence why Eva have their own lounge at Bangkok.

And it's some lounge.

Eva Air Bangkok Lounge

I have already extensively reviewed the Bangkok Eva Air Business Class Lounge, and each time I do, I wonder, is it a disco or a karaoke bar? It is certainly one of the wackiest lounges in Bangkok.

Once inside, you see that the area makes extensive use of mood lighting and colour effects to produce what the airline calls 'an engaging ambiance', and these lights come in a variety of quirky pinks and purples to go with the displayed orchids, up to thicker borders that flash on and off.

Some of the lounge's decor are also illuminated and change colour, such as the small objet d'art that are strew around, while other lighting schemes provide the appearance of a tunnel within a rather narrow wall.

Although the lounge appear overly bright or almost like a nightclub, the lighting effects here aren't overbearing or overdone because they are a natural part of the scene in the Eva Air Bangkok Lounge.

Don't miss the fish tank in the central VIP room of the lounge - which has little illuminated jelly fish. Or on the ceiling the amazing fibre optic light strands, which make it look as if you are under water. It's fascinating.

As you enter, the Business Centre alcove is on the right, while the bathrooms are on the left, up the neon lit corridor. There is a small sleeping alcove with two massage chairs behind a curtain on the right before you enter the main lounge room.

Here, the main refectory area is on the right, while the central area has large heavy chairs and a chunk high marble bench with an incongruous pot plant at the end - which is one of the few places you'll find power sockets. Here there is also a large memorial wall to Eva Air past and present, and a few odd touches, like a plastic bird in a plastic cage. It's nothing if not wacky.

The Eva Air Bangkok Lounge's buffet corner is surprisingly well stocked: it is in the first corner you come to when you enter the main lounge room.

There are plenty of Thai and Asian delicacies with pork bao and prawn dumplings among the options, along with Pad Thai, a Thai dish of stir-fried pork with basil and rice, is served in individual portions.

Western options include a hot cabinet with pizza, pork sausages, chicken and ham & mushroom pies, as well as quite a few packets of sandwiches, tightly wrapped in cling film.

Alas, and quite oddly for the Eva Air lounge, it all falls apart with the bar area. There is a very limited selection of alcoholic beverages in what seems almost like and afterthought beside the coffee machine.

Beside the Heineken beer tap is a bucket with one woeful white wine, and a matching red on the worktop.

Soon it was time to board my flight, from Bangkok Suvarnabhumi Airport all the way to London Heathrow.

Eva Air Business Class seats

After I had waded through the backpackers, and boarded my flight and home for the next 12 hours.

The first thing to note about Eva Air is that the famous evergreen business class cabin of Eva Air is very green. With odd hints of beige.

EVA Air has reverse herringbone seats in business class. These are perfectly comfortable, but they're not cutting edge, and they don't have the bells and whistles of some of the newer seats out there.

The business class cabin is arranged in a 1-2-1 with The familiar sight of the Cirrus reverse herringbone seats. It was designed by Orson Associates in 2010, and was made famous by being flow by Cathay Pacific.

Business Class is also called 'Premium Laurel Class'. there is also Royal Laurel Class which has seats with a door like Qatar's Airways QSuite. That flies on the newer 787s, whereas I was in the uprated 777.

I also took a walk though premium economy to check out what Eva were offering. It's pretty standard, with 38-inch pitch and 19.5-inch width but with a 2-4-2 layout.

There's and 11 inch touch screen, and USB charging sockets.

Even further back into economy there is a 3-4-3 layout, 31 inches of pitch, and they also have a 9 inch TV screen.

Eva Air Amenity Kit

I was offered a welcome glass of champagne, a pair of the famous Eva Air slippers, and the amenity kit.

EVA Air is introducing new Salvatore Ferragamo amenity kits for all Royal Laurel Class customers.

It comes in a new hard-case looking just like a luggage roll aboard.

There is also Ferragamo's best-selling Bianco Di Carrara fragrance with body lotion, lip balm and hand cream.

It has the usual toothpaste, eye mask and earplugs as you'd expect.

But for once this amenity kit all about the case it comes in.

There are also pyjamas. EVA Air also has a very thick pillow and the most substantial duvet you'll find on any airline, along with a mattress pad.

Eva air partnering with prominent fashion designer Jason Wu: he is famous in the small Taiwan suburb of Yunlin.

second-generation Jason Wu pyjamas in January. Designed to be comfortable and easy to wear, the sleepwear is made of a soft, cosy fabric with draw-string collar and pant pockets.

Eva Air IFE

The HD TV monitor is also pretty decent, even if the interface is about a decade old.

The films are rather dated and the TV boxed sets have just a few random episodes of US series that hit the rocky shore, sank, and are under ten fathoms right now.

It's exactly the same monitor that passengers complain about on Cathay, as it folds into the wall on takeoff and landing, so you can't watch during the taxi.

Business class passengers also get upgraded audio: A set of EVA-branded noise-cancelling headphones called THUNDER.

Eva make a lot of these - the airline claims 18 months of research went into them.

There is also wifi, but it is certainly not free for Business Class.

A further highlight is the inflight safety video features the many famous film stars of Taiwan.

Eva Air Business Class Meals

There is of course a four course meal in Business Class, and a further snack later on in the flight.

Table cloths are laid - or rather put beside you, and you have to lay them yourself.

There were no menus, and instead you have to access the menu on the IFE - but the crew they apologised that the only menu option loaded that bore any relation to the online menu was the beef tenderloin.

Menus were:

Prelude

• Smoked Halibut
• Chicken Massaman

Hors D Oeuvre

Lobster medallions with caviar and spicy roe mayonaise

Soup

Curry pumpkin soup with baked carrot

Garden vegetable salad

Mains

• Oven baked rolled chicken with champignon in morel sauce
• stir fry beef tenderloin cubes in shanxi style with steamed duo rice
• fried snapper fish with garlic chilli

Dessert

• camembert cheese, cheddar cheese blue gruyere
• lemon mousse cake

Refresher

Cheese and mushroom tart

I started off with the prelude, or what most airlines call the Amuse-bouche.

It was two slabs of toast with Smoked Halibut and Chicken Massaman, flavoured with lime, tamarind, and coconut milk.

Then it was on to the appetiser - which to avoid confusion between American and English versions Eva call the Hors D Oeuvre.

This was Lobster medallions with caviar and spicy roe mayonnaise. It was very spicey, but actually was quite good.

I did ask the crew if there were any alternatives to seafood at this point, and got the bemusing reply that everyone will eat fish so that's all they serve.

There's a hard baked roll which wouldn't be out of place on British Rail, but at least there is proper olive oil and basalmic vinegar to go with it to go with it. However the roll was so hard, I asked for some garlic bread.

Next course is the soup - which was tiny, in very small portions. It's Curried pumpkin soup with a baked carrot in the middle. It is also very spicy.

I took the garden salad next, which was fantastic, which crumbly fetta.

And then, onto the mains. The stir fry beef tenderloin cubes shanxi style with steamed duo rice was very soft and tasty.

This was promptly followed by the cheese. There is camembert, cheddar, blue cheese and gruyere. Alas there wasjust a tiny packet plastic of biscuits. And strawberries, on the side.

To finish on a sweet note, there was half a yellow ball, which is actually lemon mousse cake. Light delicate and with lots of fruitness.

Eva Air Wine and Cocktails

Cocktails

• Evergreen special with melon liqueur and vodka
• Aurora - gin and green min liqueur
• Passion island with rum and Cointreau and pineapple juice
• Walk in Milan - Brandy, Cointreau and cranberry juice
• Plum liqueur with Choya

Wine

Champagne

• Duval-Leroy
• Laurent Perrier Grand Siecle

White wine

• Gewuiztraminer jean bicher
• chateau chantegrive curve caroline from Graves in Bordeaux

Red Wine

• Crozes HEritatage Paul Jaboulet Aine
• Boxing day shiraz cabernet from Kangaroo island

I started off with a classic Gin and Tonic, and then I plumped for the Gewurztraminer jean biecher 2021. This is a full-bodied wine, with rich texture and a hint of sweetness and exotic fruit flavours of lychee and pineapple. It has a delicate, fresh finish and all of 5 euro in the Calais Carrefour.

Much better is the delicious glass of the chateau chantegrive curve caroline from Graves in Bordeau. Actually a pretty classy white with equal parts old-vine Semillon and sauvignon blanc.

To go with the Aussie Beef I took a glass of the Australian red wine. I selected the Boxing day Shiraz & Cabernet Sauvignon from Kangaroo island. On the nose it offers notes of gum and eucalyptus a classic Aussie blend - and a pricey drop at 50 dollars down Dan Murphy.

The other red is the the Crozes Heritatage Paul Jaboulet. This is a full-bodied, impressively inky red featuring blackberry and cassis flavours.

from the hill of L'Hermitage in the Northern Rhone Valley with a distinctly mineral flavour.

I thought I'd have another go at trying to connect to the internet, which started to work. I paid 40 dollars for the full package, and then the crew told me that the web was always switched off over India.

There was little else to do other than work my away through the cocktail list.

I started off with an Evergreen special. This has melon liqueur and vodka with lime juice.

So good I had to have another, and tried the Aurora, with gin and green mint liquer, using large parts of Briotet's green Peppermint Liqueur.

It's punchy stuff produced by distilling mainly peppermint leaves, and then by adding some fine sugar.

I'd already tried the Duval-Leroy champers, and sampled the Laurent Perrier to ensure it was of the very finest of quality.

It's half Chardonnay and half Pinot Noir. A beautiful gold colour with wonderful lingering on the tongue and beautifully rich.

I sampled a beer from economy class.

The Gold Medal Taiwan Beer is a top-seller with a tasty sting in its tail.

The "Gold Medal" brew, which was introduced in April 2003[ and became Taiwan Beer's top-selling style that year, has a higher maltose content than "Classic", and therefore a smoother taste. It also uses a larger proportion of ponlai rice and aromatic hops, which give it "a fresh and clean aroma.

The crew thought I could do with a snack to go with it. These aren't on the menu, but you can ask for left over meals from premium economy.

They had some vegetarian pasta left, and woo, this was really good. It comes with yet another rock hard roll.

Next up, the logical choice. Plum Liqueur, with Choya Extra Years a fine drop. It's revered throughout Japan for its balance of sweetness, acidity, exotic smooth taste and elegant aroma those complement those moments where you are at 35 thousand feet and still have five hours of the flight to go.

It won gold at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition.

The mains second meal service is a green salad with cheese balls.

Apparently Eva DO load a printed menu on each flight. But because no-one ever asks for them, they didn't even know they were there. It would be brilliant if they used them. Unfortunately these menus were three months old, and didn't bear any relation to the meals served on board.

I still had more cocktails to go, and decided to head for a stroll in Milan, with Brandy, Cointreau, cranberry and carrot juice.

The second main meal service was a cheese quiche with a green salad with honey mustard dressing.

to complete the cocktail list I tried another cocktail just before landing. This is the Passion Island, with Rum, Cointreau and pineapple juice.

And then a final, last, cocktail, in the 20 minutes before landing. A sundowner with orange, sprite, and a treble vodka.

Eva Air Business Class review

So what did I make of Eva Air?

This is a rare Fifth freedom flights - these are international routes that neither start nor end in the operating airline's home country. They typically operate as a "tag flight" but in this case operates simply because Eva originally needed to take on more fuel to get to London.

It also has the advantage that if you pay in Thai Bhat, you'll get the seat for way less than if you started in Taiwan.

For a low cost airline, Eva offer a great seat, even if it is no longer best in class.

They also shovel food at you like no tomorrow. The flight time is brilliant, allowing lunch in Bangkok and dinner in London.

Eva Air did a brilliant job getting me to London, admittedly in a rather green style.

See the full Trip Report: Eva Airways Business Class Bangkok to London video:

Trip Report: Eva Airways Business Class Bangkok to London
Lux-traveller.com rating:7 out of10
Seats:	6 - Old style but comfortable
Food:	6 - Surprisingly good
Service:	7 - Decent, not exceptional
IFE:	5 - OK, poor and expensive wifi