ak333
Oct 28, 09, 10:20 pm
A couple of days after I got home from my September trip, I was given an approximate date to travel for October. As I have mentioned in previous trip reports, I am top tier with EVA (BR), a Diamond member in their Evergreen Club, so using EVA was again almost a given. I found a great fare that was under $1000 USD for Elite (premium economy) class, and hoped that it would still be there when I finally got my OK to go. The next morning I got the green light and went on line to book the fare – it was gone. Only full Y fares were showing which were incidentally higher than some special business class fares that were being offered. I looked at all of BR’s North American gateways on line and found nothing that I could use that would fit into my given travel budget.
I decided to call EVA’s call center and see if I can use one of the published benefits of Diamond class which is a guaranteed booking. The reservations agent that I got thought that it could only be done via a travel agent and had no clue how to proceed. I thanked him for his time and called EVA’s Seattle sales office, which is their closest one to me. I got a great agent who said that while the fare was available on the return, it was sold out on the outbound. Yes, I could get the booking code I wanted (either V or L), but I would have to pay the published fare. She then gave me a phone number of their preferred Seattle consolidator that sells a ton of EVA flights (that’s why I like talking to the sales offices). I called the consolidator and got a great agent there who knew exactly what to do. She took my information including my frequent flyer number and booked the available segments and waitlisted the sold out ones. She got a confirmation back from the waitlist within seconds. I guess that’s how the guaranteed booking works. And I got the same rate that I found the previous night. She also got me the seats that are blocked for Diamond members, so I had decent seats for my flights. I figured that I would ask for bulkhead at check-in like I usually do.
As I mentioned in my last trip report, I always check using Seattle as my BR gateway first, but since the flights aren’t daily, usually one of my days does not have a flight. This time, my dates worked out just fine, so Seattle it was. This time of year, the Seattle flight is operated by a 747-400 on some days and he 777-300ER on others which sometimes makes things tricky. EVA operates 3 of the 744s in a full passenger configuration (which they call the 74W) and also has a handful of 747-400 mixed passenger/freighter combis which are known as the 74E. The 74W has the newest version of Business class called Premium Laurel which I’ve reviewed often, but the 74E has the old Super Business class which isn’t much better than Premium Economy. Super Business has cradle seats with 44 inch pitch and not the angled lie flat seats that are featured in Premium Laurel. In Elite class the 744 has almost the same layout as the 77W, but on the 74E it is called Deluxe class. Deluxe class has the same seat pitch as Elite, but better seat recline. There is no AVOD though on the 74E. Since I wasn’t planning on upgrading this time, I didn’t care about the equipment type for the long haul flight. What is unusual for me is that for the second time in a row, instead of leaving BKK at around Noon, I would be leaving later in the day, at 425PM.
Since I got the transpacific flights taken care of, I then needed to book my PDX-SEA-PDX flights. My BR flight from SEA was a scheduled 200AM departure, so when I looked at Alaska (actually operated by Horizon) flights, I just looked for the latest flight with the lowest fare which was the 830PM departure, just like last month. For my return, the BR flight was scheduled to arrive at 650PM, so the 930PM Horizon flight was the first I could book as a legal connection. However, my past experience with both flights were that I would more than likely go standby on an earlier flight to SEA depending on what time I got to the airport and an earlier flight home depending on how fast I cleared customs and immigration.
I checked in on line for my originating Horizon flight about 23 hours before departure. The flight didn’t look that full. Since I was leaving on a Wednesday night this time, the plan was to leave the house around 5PM, and have my wife drop me at the light rail, known locally in PDX as the Max. If all went well, I could catch something around 520PM and be at the airport a little over an hour later. I had a busy work day, and apparently just missed the 517PM train, getting to the station at 525PM. The next train to the airport was at 537PM which actually left at 541PM. For the Max, that’s not bad. The train filled up as we got closer to the Rose Garden area since there was a Blazer’s pre-season basketball game that night, but got empty after we left the Rose Garden station. I got to the airport station exactly an hour later at 641PM.
14Oct09 AS 2588 Y PDX-SEA CR7 N615QX seat 4A
There was no line at the First Class/MVP check in, so I checked in and got my boarding pass for the 830PM flight and a duplicate receipt for my expense report. There was just a short wait for security (mostly for the TSA’s ID checkers), and when I got through and checked my watch I saw that it was not yet 7PM. I had two choices, go to Alaska’s Board Room or just go to the gate and see if I can get on the 730PM SEA flight and just enjoy the Board Room in SEA for a longer time when I get there. I decide to go for the earlier flight, so I went down to gate A5. No one is in line, so I ask the agent if I could get on the earlier flight, and she says no problem and asks me for my seat preference. I ask for my usual window seat and I’m handed a boarding pass for seat 4A. At 710PM, we started boarding, and the aircraft was right outside door D. My original flight was scheduled as a DH8-400, but the earlier flight was a CRJ which meant a slightly quicker flight.
We left the gate exactly at 730PM, but with one runway still closed at PDX we actually had a short wait for our departure on runway 28L. We finally left the ground at 744PM. The two flight attendants quickly jumped into action and offered their express service which is a choice of: a small bottle of water, an apple juice, beer or wine. I just took the water and a bag of pretzel/chip mix was handed out as well. Almost as soon as we reached altitude we started our descent. This was a quick flight, all of 30 minutes as we touched down at 814PM on SEA’s runway 16R. We taxied over to gate C10, and the cart with our roll on bags came out quickly. As soon as I got my roll on bag from the cart, I walked upstairs and headed for the food court as I hadn’t eaten dinner. After a quick dinner, I headed to the Board Room. During my last trip, I saw a sign that said that BR’s check in would open at 10PM. One nice thing about the connection in SEA is that you don’t have to exit security to check in with EVA, you just have to make your way over to the S gates where EVA’s flight departs from. They offer a check-in facility at the gate for connecting passengers. While at the Board Room I of course grabbed a Diet Coke and made some last minute calls and checked e-mail. At a little before 1000PM, I gathered my stuff and made my way over to the S gates.
15Oct09 BR 25 C SEA-TPE 744 B-16412 seat 11K
I came upstairs from the train and I’m right at tonight’s gate, S11. Check-in actually hadn’t opened up yet, so I take out my book and read for a few minutes until the agent makes her appearance. The agent (who is the same as last trip) remembers me this time, and starts singing “Diamonds are forever” as she checks me in. Before I can ask for my preferred bulkhead seat, she says to me I’ve been upgraded tonight (I’m going to have to remember this seat guarantee thing again in the future) and a second agent that arrived when we were talking, hands me a boarding pass for an aisle seat. I ask him if there are any windows available, and the original agent takes back the aisle boarding pass and gives me one for a window, seat 11K. She advises me that the lounge will open at about 1045PM tonight. I look at my watch and that’s only about 10 minutes away, so I take a walk around the S concourse and I see our 744 out there. I find a seat and make two more calls before I go to the lounge. Once the calls are finished, I climb the staircase and walk into the lounge. In SEA, BR uses the BA lounge. The lounge agent recognizes me and I ask if the wireless password is still London. He laughs and says he doesn’t think that will every change. It’s very quiet in here, with only a few other passengers. There are snacks and drinks available, and I grabbed a Diet Coke and made a couple of phone calls and read for a bit. I headed out to the gate at 100AM.
The gate area was starting to fill, and the flight looked a lot busier than when I took it a few weeks previous. At about 115AM announcement was made for Premium Laurel, Diamond and Gold members to board, and I made my way on to the jetway and when I reached the aircraft, I got to make the left turn and headed to the second business class section between doors one and two. C class was fairly full; I only saw a few empty seats. Elite class was completely full, and standard coach only had a few empties as well. The Assistant Purser came over to me to welcome me on board and to get my pre-dinner drink order. A few minutes later, menus were handed out; it was exactly the same as my previous SEA-TPE flight. I guess that the menus aren’t changed after each calendar month. The doors closed right about 200AM, and we made our way over to runway 16L. At that time of night there was no other traffic, and we were airborne at 219AM and settled into the great circle route; As soon as we hit 10,000 feet the Chief Purser came over to welcome me on board and soon the service started.
I had my usual diet coke, and then a few minutes later the late night supper was served. Tonight’s menu:
Hors D’oeuvre: Roasted prawns with sumac, hummus and cucumber salad
Main Courses
Stir fried scallop and chicken in hot bean sauce, Chinese vegetables, steamed rice
Seared filet of beef steak with green pepper sauce, assorted vegetables, baked potatoes (my choice)
Five spice bean curd with snow cabbage, fish ball soup, stir fried noodle with shredded port
Fresh fruit
Both the prawn appetizer and the steak were good, but strangely I thought that it was better the previous time. Again, the service was very efficient – as soon as a passenger finished with a course, the next one was brought out quickly. As soon as I was done with dinner, I was handed a big sleep pillow which I put under my back and tried to sleep as much as I could. There was a snack service on demand which I did not partake in. The choices were:
Various dim sum
Ham, mozzarella cheese and vegetables open faced sandwich
Hot chocolate and cookies
Again, a rerun of my last SEA-TPE flight as I slept OK, but not great. I kept tossing and turning, but really did not get up until it was time for breakfast, so I was at least rested. The lights came on a little over 2 hours prior to landing, and a hot towel was handed to me just as I was taking off my eye mask. Breakfast choices for today:
Chinese Style – selection of tea, fresh fruit, Congee served with traditional hot and cold delicatessens
Western Style – coffee, tea, fresh fruit, choice of bread, cereal and yogurt, cream cheese and chive frittata, smoked pork loin, tomato confit, and asparagus. (my choice)
Premium Laurel Special - selection of tea, fresh fruit, braised sliced port in steamed bun, sweet congee soup with eight treasure marinated cucumber.
I really enjoyed my frittata, in fact the entire breakfast was really good and as usual I had my diet coke for caffeine. I know I’m comparing to the last flight I took on this route, but this time the breakfast was even better. One thing I noticed on this flight which doesn’t’ happen too much on EVA is that I was addressed by name the entire flight. Usually I’m only addressed by name at my initial greeting by the Chief or Assistant Purser. After breakfast I read and watched TV for a bit and we were soon set up for an early arrival. We landed on TPE’s runway 06 at 514AM, 11 hours and 55 minutes after take off, and taxied to gate C5 which is almost perfect for transfers as the walk to transfer security is not bad at all. We were the first BR transpacific flight in, so there was no wait for security. I then took the escalator upstairs to the departure area and headed for the EVA lounge area.
16Oct09 BR 211 W TPE-BKK 77W B-16702 seat 20A
It was 525AM when I got to the Evergreen lounges and the lounge was just opening up. As usual, I knew the Diamond lounge didn’t open until 630AM, and besides I really wanted/needed a shower, so I headed straight in to the bathroom and the single shower was available. When I was finished, there were others waiting. As I say in every trip report, EVA really needs to add showers to their lounges. They only have three in total, two in the C section, and one in F section and the Diamond lounge doesn’t even have a restroom, you have to leave the lounge to use the facilities. After the shower, I checked with the lounge agents to see if I can get a bulkhead window seat, and I was given 20A. The lounge does not have a boarding pass printer, so she wrote my new seat assignment on my existing boarding pass, put her chop next to it and told me to get my new boarding pass at the gate. After that, I worked e-mail and made some calls while having some water and time passed pretty quickly. I didn’t even bother with the Diamond lounge this morning. I headed out of the lounge at 735AM then I headed to my gate, C7. I approached the agent to get a new boarding pass, and once that was complete, I sat down with my book and read until boarding was announced.
At 815AM boarding started and I was one of the first on. The Assistant Purser came over to greet me almost immediately. A few minutes later the, Assistant Purser came over again to ask my meal preference. I was offered either chicken with potatoes or pork with rice. I chose the chicken, but I thought it was odd. On some days, like today, there are two TPE-BKK flights within a half hour of each other. The earlier flight, BR 211 leaves either at 830AM or 845AM depending on the day, and it normally serves breakfast. However, today’s 845AM flight was definitely not a breakfast with those two options. The other flight, BR67, flies six days a week, leaves at 900AM and normally serves lunch. I thought that this would be a nice change since I prefer the lunch over the breakfast items since I had a full breakfast on my last flight. The doors eventually closed right on schedule, and we were soon headed out to runway 06 for takeoff. I noticed as we were taxiing out that at least in Elite class (and I discovered in all three classes) this flight was only half full. Usually Elite class seats are the hard ones to come by. I did not have a seat mate, and there were rows completely empty. We turned on to the runway and took off at 854AM. Again the service started as soon as had gotten though 10,000 feet. My meal was brought out first as a special meal, and I guess it really was a brunch. I had a cacciatore style chicken with mashed potatoes and veggies as the main course. No bread was served at all, but there was a small plate of fruit (apples and oranges), a serving of yogurt, and an orange Danish. I had my usual Coke Light - a full can with more given to me as the flight progressed. The meal was good, not great, but still better than you will find on most carriers these days. I spent most of the rest if the flight watching a move with the occasional glance out the window. It was mostly overcast from the time we left Taiwan about 200 miles out of BKK. About 15 minutes before we landed, the Assistant Purser came over and asked me if I had a connection today. I said no, but I still wouldn’t mind beating the crowd off of the aircraft, and she smiled at me and said she would be back shortly. A couple of minutes later she came by and nodded at me with another smile. We landed a few minutes early at 1111AM on runway 19R for a flight time of three hours and eight minutes. Our gate today was not the usual E concourse, but instead was G3, which is a bit of a longer walk to immigration. As soon as the aircraft stopped, the Assistant Purser came back to get me, and brought me up to C class so I could be one of the first off of the plane. I really appreciated the effort from this crew today. The lines at immigration were fairly long today, but I found one line that was only six people deep. It took about 10 minutes until I was through, and then I was off to catch a taxi.
21Oct09 BR 68 W BKK-TPE 77W B-16708 seat 22K
The day before my flight, I checked in on-line, and everything looked fine, and my original seats were still booked. I had hoped to secure the bulkhead like usual, however this day turned out to be busier than I expected. It was almost 2PM when I was finally able to catch a cab, and the taxi got me to the airport just before 230PM. There was actually someone ahead of me in the line for Diamond members, but the sales/standby agent immediately called me over to check me in. As I suspected, the bulkhead seats were gone on the flight into TPE, but it was available on the long haul leg. The agent gave me my boarding pass for the BKK-TPE flight and my lounge invitation for Bangkok and told me that I would be given my connecting boarding pass and Taipei lounge invite in the Bangkok lounge. I know that they had to send my request for the bulkhead seat to TPE, and it always takes a few minutes to get the OK to print my boarding pass for the bulkhead.
Like a few weeks prior, there were some lines that greeted me at outbound immigration. The first line I joined I noticed that the immigration officer was on the phone staring at someone’s passport, so I got out of that line and joined the line two over. That seemed to work better as I did get through faster than I would have had I stuck to the original line. In the end, I got through in about five minutes. I then got to the new security area for the airport. Instead of having security at each concourse, they moved everything to one large area after outbound immigration. I like the new set up since that gives me more time in the lounge, I don’t have to guess how long the security line is going to be – especially since this aircraft originates in LHR and usually has quite a few through passengers that have to re-clear security. There was a minimal wait at security, so I got through fairly quickly, and then I was off to the Evergreen lounge. This lounge is always bright and cheery with plenty of seats, and there were also plenty of decent nibbles at this time of day. Even though I arrived at the lounge about an hour later than usual, there were only a couple of people in there when I arrived. As usual, I made a couple of calls and had some work to do, so the time again went by really quickly. I noticed the aircraft came in from LHR about 15 minutes late, so I decided to hang around the lounge an extra few minutes; the lounge agent did come over to me with my TPE-SEA boarding pass and TPE lounge invite while I was sending e-mails. At about 340PM I headed off to our gate which was E8 today. A few minutes after I arrived at the gate, a 10 minute delay was announced, and that our new boarding time was announced as 415PM.
Boarding again actually began closer to 420PM. This is the fourth time this year that I have taken flight 68 and I have a few observations. The first being that the staff at BKK has a hard time turning this aircraft in the given one hour and 15 minutes; I think they should have two hours between flights as it takes longer to clean and cater from the long haul than a short haul. The second item is that while in general on this flight the service is fine; it never rises to the level of other EVA flights that I take. I think that this is because this is the last flight of a four day trip for the flight attendants, and they are exhausted. Lastly, this flight is also used as a crew shuttle; there are always C class seats filled with pilots and flight attendants. I didn’t really get the usual greeting, but right before the door closed, one of the flight attendants came by and asked my meal preference; my choices were chicken with noodles or shrimp fried rice. We left the gate a few additional minutes behind schedule, taxied out to runway 19L, and took off at 556PM. I only saw a couple of empty seats in Elite class. Once airborne, the airshow kept showing the flight time as just two and a half hours. I knew that was wrong; normally the flight is a little over three hours, and the Purser announced the flight time as three hours and 15 minutes. The captain released the flight attendants when we reached 10,000 feet as usual and soon enough my “special meal” was brought out. Dinner tonight was chicken with noodles and veggies. It came with a warm soft roll, potato salad, apples and oranges as the fruit, and a citrus of some sort filled cake for dessert. It was good like most of the food I have had out of BKK. I asked for a full can of Coke Light and was glad I did. There was only one other beverage service offered to us and that was right when we started our decent into TPE. After the meal was finished I watched a movie and read for a bit. I knew we would have a somewhat late arrival, and we landed on TPE’s runway 06 at 913PM after three hours and 17 minutes of flying. We taxied over to gate C7, and were disembarking a few minutes later.
21Oct09 BR 26 W TPE-SEA 77W B-16708 Seat 20A
We had arrived at a good time as we were between the other international arrivals, so transfer security was not busy at all. It was then off to the EVA lounge complex. Even though I was entitled to use the Diamond lounge, it always takes a bit to get my wireless working when I’m in there. I had a couple of urgent calls that I had to make with Skype, so I went instead to the “Club” lounge where I went between flights on my outbound. This lounge has a wired connection to use, so I was able to get online quickly and make the calls that I needed. I grabbed myself a Coke Light to drink in the lounge, and a bottle of water to take with me on the aircraft. I left the lounge at 1000PM, and made my to our gate for the evening which was C4. Before entering the gate there is a passport check, and then we head downstairs to wait for boarding. The gate area did not look busy at all, and right on time at 1030PM, boarding started. I was the second passenger on board and headed to my seat. Within a minute, the Assistant Purser came over to welcome me on board. A few minutes late she came back again to offer me a choice of a lemongrass chicken with rice or beef with potatoes. While she was taking my order, a family in the middle section of the seats in my row started fussing with their toddler who apparently needed her diaper changed. As soon as the Assistant Purser left me, a different second Assistant Purser came over to me and very quietly said that there were plenty of seats available if I wanted to move. I thanked her for the offer, told her that I had ear plugs, so I would manage.
Speaking of door closure, our doors closed right on schedule, and at that moment, there was mass movement in the Elite cabin as every one moved around to get two or more seats for themselves. Elite class was not even half full; I had an empty seat next to me. We started a taxi out to runway 06, and took off at 1113PM. Again, as soon as we hit 10,000 feet our service began. The Chief Purser came by to welcome me aboard, and brought me some business class slippers. My meal was brought out first; I had had a lot of chicken for my recent meals (including in Bangkok), and my first thought was beef, but in the end, I was in the mood for something spicy, so the chicken and rice it was. It came with veggies, and was served with a warm soft roll, a salad, apples and oranges as the fruit and a small piece of cheesecake for dessert. Overall, it was one of the better Elite class meals I have had lately. I had just finished eating when the Chief Purser came by again to see how I was doing, and she cleared my tray for me so I could get some shut eye.
I put of my eye shades and put in my ear plugs and dozed off. Since this flight gets to the west coast in the evening, I only wanted to sleep for a maximum of five hours so I could adjust better to the time change. I got about 4 hours in, and then I got up. I went to lav and shaved and then watched a move. As soon as the movie started, one of the flight attendants noticed I was up and offered me a drink, so the parade of Coke Light started again. This crew was very attentive. I’m sure the light load helped, but they were really good about taking care of the entire cabin. The Assistant Purser came over to me again and asked me my breakfast choice; it was either an omelet or congee. I asked for the omelet.
About two hours before landing, my breakfast tray was brought out first. The Assistant Purser told me that another Coke Light was on the way and she would bring it by in a minute. The moment that my breakfast tray was delivered, turbulence started; and I mean the bouncy stuff, not a mild chop. The Chief Purser told all of the flight attendants to sit down and buckle up. So I figured I would eat while bouncing around; it wasn’t the first time and I’m sure it won’t be the last. The omelet had a mushroom sauce, and was served with a chicken sausage and hash browns. A warm soft roll came with it along with fruit, the orange pastry and a container of strawberry yogurt. All in all, it was pretty good. It took about a half hour until the turbulence subsided, and the flight attendants were able to get up and serve. Immediately the Assistant Purser came over with my Coke Light and apologized for taking so long to get it to me. A few minutes later my tray was picked up, and I spent the rest of the flight watching TV and soon I could see land out the window. It was a partially overcast day in the Pacific Northwest and I had a good view of Vancouver Island, and the greater Seattle area as we made our approach to SEA. We had a bit of a tail wind, so an early landing was made on SEA’s runway 16L at 607PM after a short nine hours and 53 minutes of flying. It took just a couple of minutes of taxi time over to our gate, which was EVA’s usual S11. I was surprised to see Icelandair’s 757 still at the terminal as we pulled into our gate. I was not the first off of the plane, but I was one of the first through immigration. As soon as I got downstairs to baggage claim and customs, I saw that the Icelandair flight was still clearing customs, and there was a short wait for customs and following that the TSA for connecting flights. I was in the train over to main terminal by 630PM.
21Oct09 AS 2055 Y SEA-PDX DH4 N435QX seat 2A (aircraft in Univ. of Washington livery)
When I was in the train, I knew that I could make an earlier flight to PDX, so I headed right over to the C2 complex and saw that the next PDX flight was out of gate C2L. I asked the agent about getting on this earlier flight, and he said no problem and handed me a boarding pass for this delayed 630PM departure. Apparently I didn’t check thoroughly enough, and the 700PM flight was actually going to leave a few minutes before ours. We boarded our flight just at 700PM though door 2. This flight was packed. I wasn’t the only standby and when the doors finally closed, there were no empty seats, two flight attendants flying standby were on the flight attendant jumpseats, and there was one pilot in the jumpseat as well. We left the gate at 720PM, and headed out to runway 16L, where we finally took off at 729PM. Again the usual, water, apple juice, beer or wine was offered, but no pretzels. We had a short 30 minute flight and landed on PDX’s runway 28L at 759PM and we were at gate A12G a couple of minutes after that. Thanks to the standby on the earlier flight, I got home over two hours earlier than ticketed.
Overall it was a good trip. For the most part EVA is very consistent, and that in the end is what I depend on.
I decided to call EVA’s call center and see if I can use one of the published benefits of Diamond class which is a guaranteed booking. The reservations agent that I got thought that it could only be done via a travel agent and had no clue how to proceed. I thanked him for his time and called EVA’s Seattle sales office, which is their closest one to me. I got a great agent who said that while the fare was available on the return, it was sold out on the outbound. Yes, I could get the booking code I wanted (either V or L), but I would have to pay the published fare. She then gave me a phone number of their preferred Seattle consolidator that sells a ton of EVA flights (that’s why I like talking to the sales offices). I called the consolidator and got a great agent there who knew exactly what to do. She took my information including my frequent flyer number and booked the available segments and waitlisted the sold out ones. She got a confirmation back from the waitlist within seconds. I guess that’s how the guaranteed booking works. And I got the same rate that I found the previous night. She also got me the seats that are blocked for Diamond members, so I had decent seats for my flights. I figured that I would ask for bulkhead at check-in like I usually do.
As I mentioned in my last trip report, I always check using Seattle as my BR gateway first, but since the flights aren’t daily, usually one of my days does not have a flight. This time, my dates worked out just fine, so Seattle it was. This time of year, the Seattle flight is operated by a 747-400 on some days and he 777-300ER on others which sometimes makes things tricky. EVA operates 3 of the 744s in a full passenger configuration (which they call the 74W) and also has a handful of 747-400 mixed passenger/freighter combis which are known as the 74E. The 74W has the newest version of Business class called Premium Laurel which I’ve reviewed often, but the 74E has the old Super Business class which isn’t much better than Premium Economy. Super Business has cradle seats with 44 inch pitch and not the angled lie flat seats that are featured in Premium Laurel. In Elite class the 744 has almost the same layout as the 77W, but on the 74E it is called Deluxe class. Deluxe class has the same seat pitch as Elite, but better seat recline. There is no AVOD though on the 74E. Since I wasn’t planning on upgrading this time, I didn’t care about the equipment type for the long haul flight. What is unusual for me is that for the second time in a row, instead of leaving BKK at around Noon, I would be leaving later in the day, at 425PM.
Since I got the transpacific flights taken care of, I then needed to book my PDX-SEA-PDX flights. My BR flight from SEA was a scheduled 200AM departure, so when I looked at Alaska (actually operated by Horizon) flights, I just looked for the latest flight with the lowest fare which was the 830PM departure, just like last month. For my return, the BR flight was scheduled to arrive at 650PM, so the 930PM Horizon flight was the first I could book as a legal connection. However, my past experience with both flights were that I would more than likely go standby on an earlier flight to SEA depending on what time I got to the airport and an earlier flight home depending on how fast I cleared customs and immigration.
I checked in on line for my originating Horizon flight about 23 hours before departure. The flight didn’t look that full. Since I was leaving on a Wednesday night this time, the plan was to leave the house around 5PM, and have my wife drop me at the light rail, known locally in PDX as the Max. If all went well, I could catch something around 520PM and be at the airport a little over an hour later. I had a busy work day, and apparently just missed the 517PM train, getting to the station at 525PM. The next train to the airport was at 537PM which actually left at 541PM. For the Max, that’s not bad. The train filled up as we got closer to the Rose Garden area since there was a Blazer’s pre-season basketball game that night, but got empty after we left the Rose Garden station. I got to the airport station exactly an hour later at 641PM.
14Oct09 AS 2588 Y PDX-SEA CR7 N615QX seat 4A
There was no line at the First Class/MVP check in, so I checked in and got my boarding pass for the 830PM flight and a duplicate receipt for my expense report. There was just a short wait for security (mostly for the TSA’s ID checkers), and when I got through and checked my watch I saw that it was not yet 7PM. I had two choices, go to Alaska’s Board Room or just go to the gate and see if I can get on the 730PM SEA flight and just enjoy the Board Room in SEA for a longer time when I get there. I decide to go for the earlier flight, so I went down to gate A5. No one is in line, so I ask the agent if I could get on the earlier flight, and she says no problem and asks me for my seat preference. I ask for my usual window seat and I’m handed a boarding pass for seat 4A. At 710PM, we started boarding, and the aircraft was right outside door D. My original flight was scheduled as a DH8-400, but the earlier flight was a CRJ which meant a slightly quicker flight.
We left the gate exactly at 730PM, but with one runway still closed at PDX we actually had a short wait for our departure on runway 28L. We finally left the ground at 744PM. The two flight attendants quickly jumped into action and offered their express service which is a choice of: a small bottle of water, an apple juice, beer or wine. I just took the water and a bag of pretzel/chip mix was handed out as well. Almost as soon as we reached altitude we started our descent. This was a quick flight, all of 30 minutes as we touched down at 814PM on SEA’s runway 16R. We taxied over to gate C10, and the cart with our roll on bags came out quickly. As soon as I got my roll on bag from the cart, I walked upstairs and headed for the food court as I hadn’t eaten dinner. After a quick dinner, I headed to the Board Room. During my last trip, I saw a sign that said that BR’s check in would open at 10PM. One nice thing about the connection in SEA is that you don’t have to exit security to check in with EVA, you just have to make your way over to the S gates where EVA’s flight departs from. They offer a check-in facility at the gate for connecting passengers. While at the Board Room I of course grabbed a Diet Coke and made some last minute calls and checked e-mail. At a little before 1000PM, I gathered my stuff and made my way over to the S gates.
15Oct09 BR 25 C SEA-TPE 744 B-16412 seat 11K
I came upstairs from the train and I’m right at tonight’s gate, S11. Check-in actually hadn’t opened up yet, so I take out my book and read for a few minutes until the agent makes her appearance. The agent (who is the same as last trip) remembers me this time, and starts singing “Diamonds are forever” as she checks me in. Before I can ask for my preferred bulkhead seat, she says to me I’ve been upgraded tonight (I’m going to have to remember this seat guarantee thing again in the future) and a second agent that arrived when we were talking, hands me a boarding pass for an aisle seat. I ask him if there are any windows available, and the original agent takes back the aisle boarding pass and gives me one for a window, seat 11K. She advises me that the lounge will open at about 1045PM tonight. I look at my watch and that’s only about 10 minutes away, so I take a walk around the S concourse and I see our 744 out there. I find a seat and make two more calls before I go to the lounge. Once the calls are finished, I climb the staircase and walk into the lounge. In SEA, BR uses the BA lounge. The lounge agent recognizes me and I ask if the wireless password is still London. He laughs and says he doesn’t think that will every change. It’s very quiet in here, with only a few other passengers. There are snacks and drinks available, and I grabbed a Diet Coke and made a couple of phone calls and read for a bit. I headed out to the gate at 100AM.
The gate area was starting to fill, and the flight looked a lot busier than when I took it a few weeks previous. At about 115AM announcement was made for Premium Laurel, Diamond and Gold members to board, and I made my way on to the jetway and when I reached the aircraft, I got to make the left turn and headed to the second business class section between doors one and two. C class was fairly full; I only saw a few empty seats. Elite class was completely full, and standard coach only had a few empties as well. The Assistant Purser came over to me to welcome me on board and to get my pre-dinner drink order. A few minutes later, menus were handed out; it was exactly the same as my previous SEA-TPE flight. I guess that the menus aren’t changed after each calendar month. The doors closed right about 200AM, and we made our way over to runway 16L. At that time of night there was no other traffic, and we were airborne at 219AM and settled into the great circle route; As soon as we hit 10,000 feet the Chief Purser came over to welcome me on board and soon the service started.
I had my usual diet coke, and then a few minutes later the late night supper was served. Tonight’s menu:
Hors D’oeuvre: Roasted prawns with sumac, hummus and cucumber salad
Main Courses
Stir fried scallop and chicken in hot bean sauce, Chinese vegetables, steamed rice
Seared filet of beef steak with green pepper sauce, assorted vegetables, baked potatoes (my choice)
Five spice bean curd with snow cabbage, fish ball soup, stir fried noodle with shredded port
Fresh fruit
Both the prawn appetizer and the steak were good, but strangely I thought that it was better the previous time. Again, the service was very efficient – as soon as a passenger finished with a course, the next one was brought out quickly. As soon as I was done with dinner, I was handed a big sleep pillow which I put under my back and tried to sleep as much as I could. There was a snack service on demand which I did not partake in. The choices were:
Various dim sum
Ham, mozzarella cheese and vegetables open faced sandwich
Hot chocolate and cookies
Again, a rerun of my last SEA-TPE flight as I slept OK, but not great. I kept tossing and turning, but really did not get up until it was time for breakfast, so I was at least rested. The lights came on a little over 2 hours prior to landing, and a hot towel was handed to me just as I was taking off my eye mask. Breakfast choices for today:
Chinese Style – selection of tea, fresh fruit, Congee served with traditional hot and cold delicatessens
Western Style – coffee, tea, fresh fruit, choice of bread, cereal and yogurt, cream cheese and chive frittata, smoked pork loin, tomato confit, and asparagus. (my choice)
Premium Laurel Special - selection of tea, fresh fruit, braised sliced port in steamed bun, sweet congee soup with eight treasure marinated cucumber.
I really enjoyed my frittata, in fact the entire breakfast was really good and as usual I had my diet coke for caffeine. I know I’m comparing to the last flight I took on this route, but this time the breakfast was even better. One thing I noticed on this flight which doesn’t’ happen too much on EVA is that I was addressed by name the entire flight. Usually I’m only addressed by name at my initial greeting by the Chief or Assistant Purser. After breakfast I read and watched TV for a bit and we were soon set up for an early arrival. We landed on TPE’s runway 06 at 514AM, 11 hours and 55 minutes after take off, and taxied to gate C5 which is almost perfect for transfers as the walk to transfer security is not bad at all. We were the first BR transpacific flight in, so there was no wait for security. I then took the escalator upstairs to the departure area and headed for the EVA lounge area.
16Oct09 BR 211 W TPE-BKK 77W B-16702 seat 20A
It was 525AM when I got to the Evergreen lounges and the lounge was just opening up. As usual, I knew the Diamond lounge didn’t open until 630AM, and besides I really wanted/needed a shower, so I headed straight in to the bathroom and the single shower was available. When I was finished, there were others waiting. As I say in every trip report, EVA really needs to add showers to their lounges. They only have three in total, two in the C section, and one in F section and the Diamond lounge doesn’t even have a restroom, you have to leave the lounge to use the facilities. After the shower, I checked with the lounge agents to see if I can get a bulkhead window seat, and I was given 20A. The lounge does not have a boarding pass printer, so she wrote my new seat assignment on my existing boarding pass, put her chop next to it and told me to get my new boarding pass at the gate. After that, I worked e-mail and made some calls while having some water and time passed pretty quickly. I didn’t even bother with the Diamond lounge this morning. I headed out of the lounge at 735AM then I headed to my gate, C7. I approached the agent to get a new boarding pass, and once that was complete, I sat down with my book and read until boarding was announced.
At 815AM boarding started and I was one of the first on. The Assistant Purser came over to greet me almost immediately. A few minutes later the, Assistant Purser came over again to ask my meal preference. I was offered either chicken with potatoes or pork with rice. I chose the chicken, but I thought it was odd. On some days, like today, there are two TPE-BKK flights within a half hour of each other. The earlier flight, BR 211 leaves either at 830AM or 845AM depending on the day, and it normally serves breakfast. However, today’s 845AM flight was definitely not a breakfast with those two options. The other flight, BR67, flies six days a week, leaves at 900AM and normally serves lunch. I thought that this would be a nice change since I prefer the lunch over the breakfast items since I had a full breakfast on my last flight. The doors eventually closed right on schedule, and we were soon headed out to runway 06 for takeoff. I noticed as we were taxiing out that at least in Elite class (and I discovered in all three classes) this flight was only half full. Usually Elite class seats are the hard ones to come by. I did not have a seat mate, and there were rows completely empty. We turned on to the runway and took off at 854AM. Again the service started as soon as had gotten though 10,000 feet. My meal was brought out first as a special meal, and I guess it really was a brunch. I had a cacciatore style chicken with mashed potatoes and veggies as the main course. No bread was served at all, but there was a small plate of fruit (apples and oranges), a serving of yogurt, and an orange Danish. I had my usual Coke Light - a full can with more given to me as the flight progressed. The meal was good, not great, but still better than you will find on most carriers these days. I spent most of the rest if the flight watching a move with the occasional glance out the window. It was mostly overcast from the time we left Taiwan about 200 miles out of BKK. About 15 minutes before we landed, the Assistant Purser came over and asked me if I had a connection today. I said no, but I still wouldn’t mind beating the crowd off of the aircraft, and she smiled at me and said she would be back shortly. A couple of minutes later she came by and nodded at me with another smile. We landed a few minutes early at 1111AM on runway 19R for a flight time of three hours and eight minutes. Our gate today was not the usual E concourse, but instead was G3, which is a bit of a longer walk to immigration. As soon as the aircraft stopped, the Assistant Purser came back to get me, and brought me up to C class so I could be one of the first off of the plane. I really appreciated the effort from this crew today. The lines at immigration were fairly long today, but I found one line that was only six people deep. It took about 10 minutes until I was through, and then I was off to catch a taxi.
21Oct09 BR 68 W BKK-TPE 77W B-16708 seat 22K
The day before my flight, I checked in on-line, and everything looked fine, and my original seats were still booked. I had hoped to secure the bulkhead like usual, however this day turned out to be busier than I expected. It was almost 2PM when I was finally able to catch a cab, and the taxi got me to the airport just before 230PM. There was actually someone ahead of me in the line for Diamond members, but the sales/standby agent immediately called me over to check me in. As I suspected, the bulkhead seats were gone on the flight into TPE, but it was available on the long haul leg. The agent gave me my boarding pass for the BKK-TPE flight and my lounge invitation for Bangkok and told me that I would be given my connecting boarding pass and Taipei lounge invite in the Bangkok lounge. I know that they had to send my request for the bulkhead seat to TPE, and it always takes a few minutes to get the OK to print my boarding pass for the bulkhead.
Like a few weeks prior, there were some lines that greeted me at outbound immigration. The first line I joined I noticed that the immigration officer was on the phone staring at someone’s passport, so I got out of that line and joined the line two over. That seemed to work better as I did get through faster than I would have had I stuck to the original line. In the end, I got through in about five minutes. I then got to the new security area for the airport. Instead of having security at each concourse, they moved everything to one large area after outbound immigration. I like the new set up since that gives me more time in the lounge, I don’t have to guess how long the security line is going to be – especially since this aircraft originates in LHR and usually has quite a few through passengers that have to re-clear security. There was a minimal wait at security, so I got through fairly quickly, and then I was off to the Evergreen lounge. This lounge is always bright and cheery with plenty of seats, and there were also plenty of decent nibbles at this time of day. Even though I arrived at the lounge about an hour later than usual, there were only a couple of people in there when I arrived. As usual, I made a couple of calls and had some work to do, so the time again went by really quickly. I noticed the aircraft came in from LHR about 15 minutes late, so I decided to hang around the lounge an extra few minutes; the lounge agent did come over to me with my TPE-SEA boarding pass and TPE lounge invite while I was sending e-mails. At about 340PM I headed off to our gate which was E8 today. A few minutes after I arrived at the gate, a 10 minute delay was announced, and that our new boarding time was announced as 415PM.
Boarding again actually began closer to 420PM. This is the fourth time this year that I have taken flight 68 and I have a few observations. The first being that the staff at BKK has a hard time turning this aircraft in the given one hour and 15 minutes; I think they should have two hours between flights as it takes longer to clean and cater from the long haul than a short haul. The second item is that while in general on this flight the service is fine; it never rises to the level of other EVA flights that I take. I think that this is because this is the last flight of a four day trip for the flight attendants, and they are exhausted. Lastly, this flight is also used as a crew shuttle; there are always C class seats filled with pilots and flight attendants. I didn’t really get the usual greeting, but right before the door closed, one of the flight attendants came by and asked my meal preference; my choices were chicken with noodles or shrimp fried rice. We left the gate a few additional minutes behind schedule, taxied out to runway 19L, and took off at 556PM. I only saw a couple of empty seats in Elite class. Once airborne, the airshow kept showing the flight time as just two and a half hours. I knew that was wrong; normally the flight is a little over three hours, and the Purser announced the flight time as three hours and 15 minutes. The captain released the flight attendants when we reached 10,000 feet as usual and soon enough my “special meal” was brought out. Dinner tonight was chicken with noodles and veggies. It came with a warm soft roll, potato salad, apples and oranges as the fruit, and a citrus of some sort filled cake for dessert. It was good like most of the food I have had out of BKK. I asked for a full can of Coke Light and was glad I did. There was only one other beverage service offered to us and that was right when we started our decent into TPE. After the meal was finished I watched a movie and read for a bit. I knew we would have a somewhat late arrival, and we landed on TPE’s runway 06 at 913PM after three hours and 17 minutes of flying. We taxied over to gate C7, and were disembarking a few minutes later.
21Oct09 BR 26 W TPE-SEA 77W B-16708 Seat 20A
We had arrived at a good time as we were between the other international arrivals, so transfer security was not busy at all. It was then off to the EVA lounge complex. Even though I was entitled to use the Diamond lounge, it always takes a bit to get my wireless working when I’m in there. I had a couple of urgent calls that I had to make with Skype, so I went instead to the “Club” lounge where I went between flights on my outbound. This lounge has a wired connection to use, so I was able to get online quickly and make the calls that I needed. I grabbed myself a Coke Light to drink in the lounge, and a bottle of water to take with me on the aircraft. I left the lounge at 1000PM, and made my to our gate for the evening which was C4. Before entering the gate there is a passport check, and then we head downstairs to wait for boarding. The gate area did not look busy at all, and right on time at 1030PM, boarding started. I was the second passenger on board and headed to my seat. Within a minute, the Assistant Purser came over to welcome me on board. A few minutes late she came back again to offer me a choice of a lemongrass chicken with rice or beef with potatoes. While she was taking my order, a family in the middle section of the seats in my row started fussing with their toddler who apparently needed her diaper changed. As soon as the Assistant Purser left me, a different second Assistant Purser came over to me and very quietly said that there were plenty of seats available if I wanted to move. I thanked her for the offer, told her that I had ear plugs, so I would manage.
Speaking of door closure, our doors closed right on schedule, and at that moment, there was mass movement in the Elite cabin as every one moved around to get two or more seats for themselves. Elite class was not even half full; I had an empty seat next to me. We started a taxi out to runway 06, and took off at 1113PM. Again, as soon as we hit 10,000 feet our service began. The Chief Purser came by to welcome me aboard, and brought me some business class slippers. My meal was brought out first; I had had a lot of chicken for my recent meals (including in Bangkok), and my first thought was beef, but in the end, I was in the mood for something spicy, so the chicken and rice it was. It came with veggies, and was served with a warm soft roll, a salad, apples and oranges as the fruit and a small piece of cheesecake for dessert. Overall, it was one of the better Elite class meals I have had lately. I had just finished eating when the Chief Purser came by again to see how I was doing, and she cleared my tray for me so I could get some shut eye.
I put of my eye shades and put in my ear plugs and dozed off. Since this flight gets to the west coast in the evening, I only wanted to sleep for a maximum of five hours so I could adjust better to the time change. I got about 4 hours in, and then I got up. I went to lav and shaved and then watched a move. As soon as the movie started, one of the flight attendants noticed I was up and offered me a drink, so the parade of Coke Light started again. This crew was very attentive. I’m sure the light load helped, but they were really good about taking care of the entire cabin. The Assistant Purser came over to me again and asked me my breakfast choice; it was either an omelet or congee. I asked for the omelet.
About two hours before landing, my breakfast tray was brought out first. The Assistant Purser told me that another Coke Light was on the way and she would bring it by in a minute. The moment that my breakfast tray was delivered, turbulence started; and I mean the bouncy stuff, not a mild chop. The Chief Purser told all of the flight attendants to sit down and buckle up. So I figured I would eat while bouncing around; it wasn’t the first time and I’m sure it won’t be the last. The omelet had a mushroom sauce, and was served with a chicken sausage and hash browns. A warm soft roll came with it along with fruit, the orange pastry and a container of strawberry yogurt. All in all, it was pretty good. It took about a half hour until the turbulence subsided, and the flight attendants were able to get up and serve. Immediately the Assistant Purser came over with my Coke Light and apologized for taking so long to get it to me. A few minutes later my tray was picked up, and I spent the rest of the flight watching TV and soon I could see land out the window. It was a partially overcast day in the Pacific Northwest and I had a good view of Vancouver Island, and the greater Seattle area as we made our approach to SEA. We had a bit of a tail wind, so an early landing was made on SEA’s runway 16L at 607PM after a short nine hours and 53 minutes of flying. It took just a couple of minutes of taxi time over to our gate, which was EVA’s usual S11. I was surprised to see Icelandair’s 757 still at the terminal as we pulled into our gate. I was not the first off of the plane, but I was one of the first through immigration. As soon as I got downstairs to baggage claim and customs, I saw that the Icelandair flight was still clearing customs, and there was a short wait for customs and following that the TSA for connecting flights. I was in the train over to main terminal by 630PM.
21Oct09 AS 2055 Y SEA-PDX DH4 N435QX seat 2A (aircraft in Univ. of Washington livery)
When I was in the train, I knew that I could make an earlier flight to PDX, so I headed right over to the C2 complex and saw that the next PDX flight was out of gate C2L. I asked the agent about getting on this earlier flight, and he said no problem and handed me a boarding pass for this delayed 630PM departure. Apparently I didn’t check thoroughly enough, and the 700PM flight was actually going to leave a few minutes before ours. We boarded our flight just at 700PM though door 2. This flight was packed. I wasn’t the only standby and when the doors finally closed, there were no empty seats, two flight attendants flying standby were on the flight attendant jumpseats, and there was one pilot in the jumpseat as well. We left the gate at 720PM, and headed out to runway 16L, where we finally took off at 729PM. Again the usual, water, apple juice, beer or wine was offered, but no pretzels. We had a short 30 minute flight and landed on PDX’s runway 28L at 759PM and we were at gate A12G a couple of minutes after that. Thanks to the standby on the earlier flight, I got home over two hours earlier than ticketed.
Overall it was a good trip. For the most part EVA is very consistent, and that in the end is what I depend on.