Originally Posted by
Carfield
The strangest thing is that their profits have grown 18% to $1.22B TWD.
At the same time, inflation also affects airlines too, and I will add that catering has also suffered a bit too. Nothing major but you notice things.
I agree that EVA Air is still a good airline, but after my last flight from LAX to TPE, I wrote them an email telling them I noticed subtle cutbacks like the quality of PJ has gone down, and catering is also not as good as before especially from LAX. I think we as passengers need to write back too.
However I find it concerning that they no longer offer slippers automatically on these longer regional flights. I can understand them offering them on demand on the short flights between Taiwan and Hong Kong/Macau/Okinawa/Cebu/Manila, but Taipei to Jakarta is literally one of their longer regional flights.
EVA Air business class is still one of my favorite in the world but given that they won't get a new seat for another year or two, EVA Air can only compete with the soft aspect like amenities, PJ, and catering. It is a bit short-sighted especially after another record-breaking profitable year.
Carfield
1. I am ok with "Slippers on demand" because I don't like their open-front-end slippers anyway. I usually bring my own slippers when flying EVA. And if you are a frequent J flyers, you probably have too many airlines slippers at home now, it is a big waste and not environmentally friendly. Same with PJ.
2. I am sure EVA monitor their customer feedbacks. They know they are cutting back and they know they are using cheaper products. But the market is still in high demand (reflected by the high fare price, and the J cabins are full on almost all of my flights with them post covid, especially longhauls), they have no reason to be generous. I am sure EVA's owners and shareholders would rather have more money in their own pockets.
3. It is a competitive and open market. If you feel SQ or JAL or ANA or CI offer better products than EVA, you are free to fly with any of them. (SQ is now "amenity kits on demand only", and their amenity kit is a very scale-down thin pouch with pitiful contents. ANA's amenity kit has pretty sad content too, CI's amenity kit pouch is a low-end brand "North Face").
There are a lot of well-off passengers flooding the business class these days, and adding the credit card points redemption to the crowd. The business class flight is no longer a luxury experience as you may hope to have. Plus, the babyboomer retirees who have the time and money to travel now on higher end products such as business classes. The airline business class is a sellers market now, i.e., the demand exceeds supply, customers compete to grab a seat in business class.