China Airlines Business Class (CL57) 23:25 23 July 2019 Taipei-Melb

[travelnutjohn]

Since im on a roll , thought Id put up my recent trip report for my China Airlines Business Class Taipei to Melb
Thanks to Mel_traveller's recommendation, I had never even heard of it

Date: 23:25 Jul 2019, 23:25
Aircraft: A350-900
Details: Taipei-Melbourne
Seat: 16D

Note: Easily confused is that this is China Airlines from Taiwan and is completely different to Air China, which is Mainland China's airline. I certainly did not know they were different before I had booked

Checkin




Once again, excited to turn up to try another airline in J or F
Once again, I was hoping for a long Y queue where I could stroll past and get served immediately like a king
but, there were less economy passengers checking in who got served before me
Checkin process was smooth and no problems,

Lounge

I received a separate Lounge Access ticket, and redeeming it was no problems, no asking to see passport,
Nice looking entrance

 

[travelnutjohn]

Lounge (continuted)



Lounge was busy, neat,
Food, alcohol, drinks all were good but your usual standard business class standards

 

[travelnutjohn]

Lounge (continued)

There is a smaller quieter area that people who want to be away from others,
whilst the view from the window side high tables looking over the checkin counters i thought was very soothing!

Boarding


Massive queue for the FIrst/Business boarding gate, whilst the Economy was even longer,
but not a problem once it got going

 

[travelnutjohn]

Seat

 

[travelnutjohn]

Seat (Continued)





Very nice interior, everything is new and modern,
the lamp gives it a homely feeling and is a nice touch, you have about 4 storage compartments, handheld device and a seat adjustment touch screen
the seat adjustment screen is very easy to use and simple, I liked it

A few people on other forums have said that the bed is hard, I did nt feel a thing nor did I feel it was too hard

 

[travelnutjohn]

Seat (continued)


A drink offered before take off, there is a reading lamp above your head which is funky
Amenity kits, water bottle, head phones placed in the many compartments
Armrest actually goes up and down

 

[travelnutjohn]

Table folds in half to provide a lot of room and slides fwd and back in 2 stages,
one thing I struggled was the button beneath the table to get it to slide under the TV, literally had to ask the staff to do it, I just couldnt find the button, and once I found it, I just couldnt work it out
Amenity kit had lots of unique stuff. even came with a phone screen/laptop/glasses wipe, and teeth floss


apparently this is what the bar is supposed to look like in the ads, and this is what another traveller on a different flight faced,
I had forgotten about the existance of the bar, and only rememebered when I went to the toilet, I forgot to take a pic but my bar had a large box on top of it with a trolley in front, so it clearly wasnt supposed to be for public use

 

[travelnutjohn]

Menu

 

[travelnutjohn]

Menu (continued)


Two meals provided, dinner and breakfast, breakfast was western and asian version, dinner a three course,



Chose the asian congee for breakfast, they gave me 4 bowls of big condiments
in fact I poured the entire pork floss on my congee and it looked like a snow cone


Dinner, I chose the pork, quite satisfactory overall, nothing amazing, adequate

 

[woodyren]

Enjoying the report. Looking toward booking a China Airlines trip to Taipei next year. Plenty of reward availibility at present.

 

[travelnutjohn]

Entertainement system is pretty good, the handheld remote is pretty new and cool, touch tv screen is nice,
the only thing I couldnt work out was how to navigate fwds and backwards on teh hand held device, I tried and tried and in the end had to push the home screen to do anythng



Nice selection of movies, not extensive but good enough
h

Comfy slippers provided (am still using them now), headphones adeqaute, dont think they were noise cancelling,




toilet seemed the same as economy ,
cabin lighting was very funky and nice even when they made it pitch black
Cables for the headphones and your phone charger hangout of gap intentionally, didnt bother me , but might be a bit messy for some

 

[travelnutjohn]

Enjoying the report. Looking toward booking a China Airlines trip to Taipei next year. Plenty of reward availibility at present.

let me know if you can work out how to use the handheld remote ! scrolling was easy but fwd and back I couldnt work out !

 

[kermatu]

Nice report. Thank you.

 

[travelnutjohn]

Oh and i forgot to mention .
Apparently to get your free onboard internet you need to preregister AND have a ticket number that starts with 34 (?), which i believe is for direct air China bookings only.. so in my case , since I booked via Qantas, my ticket number wasnt remotely similar, and hence I didn't have interenet

 

[tizey]

Thanks for the write-up and plenty of photos. Travelling this in a few months.

How did you find sleeping in their seat?Comparative to other J offerings you've tried?

 

[boomy]

Thanks for the TR @travelnutjohn.

I had the pleasure of flying CI recently ex-BNE, same plane and similar F&B menu. Overall was impressed by the hard product and service. Amenity kit was decent but shame don’t provide PJs on overnight flights. The food was ok but wines were horrible. The champagne tasted like someone put honey into it and the two reds (French and Italian) were really bad. They run out of the Aussie red on previous leg (ex-AKL). Having said that on overnight flights the hard product is most important so I would fly them again.

 

[rbjhan]

I've booked on CI to fly Mel - Tpe next Feb. Nice to read your report and so many photos!

 

[NinnyPoo]

Did a CI flight to Europe (Gatwick) an return from Amsterdam. 3 flights on an A350 and one 777. In both cases managed a 2-3 hour only transit in Taipei.

Impressed by all aspects of the business class flights and for the price very impressed,

 

[travelnutjohn]

Thanks for the write-up and plenty of photos. Travelling this in a few months.

How did you find sleeping in their seat?Comparative to other J offerings you've tried?

I have read a few reports saying that many people found the bed hard, I didnt find it uncomfortable at all

since I travelled solo, next time I will definitely choose a window seat, I was a bit surprised that the seats didnt come with privacy dividers even though most of next door passenger I couldnt see

 

[travelnutjohn]

P.S one thing I remember I watched a movie, and it said "this movie has been edited for ...." and the movie looked like it was shot on a video camera,
the visual was a bit bad but the worst was the audio, very hard to hear,