Originally Posted by
tth6133
I have a somewhat different take on this for several reasons:
1) I'd rather have a connection in Asia than in the US on the way back from Asia to avoid having to collect and recheck my bags in order to clear customs.
2) For international-to-international transfers, TPE has free airside skytrain between terminals that the other airports in Asia and the US generally don't have (some airports have shuttle buses but they tend to take much longer).
3) Lounges at TPE aren't great, but they aren't, generally speaking, any worse than those at the other listed Asian or US airports.
If his destination is mainland China, then TPE is definitely on the bottom of the convenient list with the restrictions China set up for transits. Chinese passports are not allowed to use TPE for transit on the way back, those with foreign passports but were also Chinese citizens in the past had to go through heavy scrutiny before they can leave directly from China to TPE except 3 airports (which no one serves those 3 airports at the moment).
I do want to point out the airside skytrain is only available on the arrival level and does not let you go across the wings. It's not available on departure level once you go past security (and transit passengers likely won't exit). The layout of TPE is a big H so it can get very far if you are connecting from one end to the other. When Terminal 3 is finished this should be addressed to a certain extent, but unknown at the moment.
Lounges at TPE are terrible for transit passengers cause everyone and their mom are transiting at the same time in the morning. It's almost impossible to find a seat in all the EVA lounges except Garden. EVA simply did not address this issue except the Club that was opened more than 10 years ago and this is partially TPE's problem cause there are literally no spaces. The same situation applies to all other lounges except maybe Starlux T2, whether airline or 3rd party. As for other periods, it does get crowded in the afternoon bank of departures as well.
With all that said, I do want to say that I would avoid transiting in the USA like a plague cause of the bag re-checks and domestic inflight service. I am not too sure if I can quantify domestic inflight service as a plus for TPE, but I will try to avoid is as much as possible.