My airplane prayers have been answered. Back in October I wrote a post entitled “EVA Air gives Seattle a taste of the good life… but not for long.” EVA Air presently flies to Seattle five times weekly using a 747-400, and the issue with that is that their 747s feature their ancient business class product with recliner seats. Meanwhile EVA Air’s Royal Laurel Class on their 777-300ER aircraft is spectacular, with fully flat reverse herringbone seats, which is the best business class hard product out there. I’ve sure enjoyed both of my longhaul flights on EVA Air, from Taipei to San Francisco and from Taipei to Los Angeles.
EVA Air 777-300ER Royal Laurel Class
Anyway, the premise of the post was that back in October EVA Air temporarily put some 777-300ERs on their Seattle route, but only for a period of two weeks. However, per airlineroute.net, it appears as if Seattle will be getting permanent 777-300ER service as of next August.
Starting August 6, 2014, three of the five weekly Seattle frequencies will be operated by 777-300ERs rather than 747-400s. From Taipei to Seattle the Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday frequencies will be operated by 777-300ERs, while from Seattle to Taipei the Monday, Thursday, and Saturday frequencies will be operated by 777-300ERs. As a reminder, the schedule for the flight is as follows:
EVA 26 Taipei to Seattle departing 11:40PM arriving 7:50PM
EVA 25 Seattle to Taipei departing 2:10AM arriving 5:10AM
I love that the flights are redeyes in both directions, since I’d love to spend a full day at home, go to the airport, get a good night of sleep on the plane, and wake up in Asia. The same is true for the return. It just doesn’t tempt me when the flight is operated by a 747-400, since you can take the “good night of sleep” out of the equation.
Taipei is in North Asia, so while US Airways still belongs to the Star Alliance you can book roundtrip business class flights on this route for 90,000 miles. Sadly I probably won’t be in Seattle anymore next August, so doubt I’ll be taking advantage of it. Or I may just be tempted to connect through Los Angeles anyway so I can catch the Hello Kitty service. 😉
Business class award availability on the route is excellent, though…
(Tip of the hat to Jason)
i felt like i was being ripped off, with being stuck on the 747-400s premium laurel, from vancouver to taipei, but in a 777 royal laurel from taipei to singapore, so i had to do a search, i'm not sure if i feel any better now :/ not only are the seats horrible on the 747 but the service is too compared to the 777
Will Seattle get Hello Kitty at all, EVA?
@ Hong Kong Airline News -- It's not scheduled to.
Not sure if the schedule isn't right or if they really are going back to the 787 but after mid November the 777 isn't on the schedule at UA.com.
Ah, all good news. So now this adds another decent TPAC option for *A awards (assuming you can swallow the devaluation…which we all will have to soon enough). Hmm….I need to look into how this would work out connecting to onward legs beyond TPE (BKK, MLE, DPS, etc.). But it's always nice to know there's another good option out of SEA to get across the ocean in a nice seat (with good availability).
What do you mean you won't be no longer in Seattle? Where are going to? Moving back to Germany? Don't do that...we still need you here!!
@ eponymous coward -- Yeah, Vancouver gets the 747 with the old product.
@lucky: you mean like Vancouver?
@ turgutbey -- Well EVA Air doesn't have any regionally configured 777-300ERs. They're all longhaul configured. A majority of them have the new Royal Laurel Class product, while a few of them still have their old business class. To be sure it's the new product you can look at the seatmap. If business class is in a 1-2-1 configuration, then it's the new product. If it's in a 2-3-2 configuration it's the old product.
any idea if regional EVA 777-300 also have royal laurel or is it a different product?
So close! We fly back to SEA from Taipei on August 5th!!!
@ Andy -- Yes, the only Hello Kitty service to the US is a few times a week to Los Angeles.
@ ncSam -- Hah, well we're losing the first class cabin on Lufthansa around the same time, so it's a wash I'd say. Might just move to a city that has Lufthansa first class AND EVA Air Royal Laurel Class.
@ Lyndon -- They don't.
I can sleep in a good flat seat, but SEA TPE is nearly 13 hours. I can't sleep that long.
I'd much prefer to leave earlier, enjoy a leisurely dinner, have a few more drinks, then get as much sleep as I can manage. Leaving at 2am means being too tired to enjoy doing that, assuming they are even serving a full meal at the beginning of the flight.
Even for those of...
I can sleep in a good flat seat, but SEA TPE is nearly 13 hours. I can't sleep that long.
I'd much prefer to leave earlier, enjoy a leisurely dinner, have a few more drinks, then get as much sleep as I can manage. Leaving at 2am means being too tired to enjoy doing that, assuming they are even serving a full meal at the beginning of the flight.
Even for those of us who can sleep 6 hours on a plane, if you go to sleep right away on this flight, when you wake up that's another 7 hours of just sitting there waiting to arrive. I'd much prefer to break that up into 2 shorter segments.
Arriving in Taipei at 5 am doesn't sound too great either.
On the other hand, TPE LAX is only 11:30 hours, departing at 18:30 arriving LAX at 1:30. That sounds about perfect.
Yesss! Now that is great news...
Are these all non-Hello Kitty flights out of SEA?
Reconsidering the move from SEA? ;)
Does BR give out PJ's in Royal Laurel Class?
"get a good night of sleep on the plane"
Good for you if you can do this. For people like me who can't sleep or at least can't sleep well on a plane that schedule doesn't sound so great.
Sounds like the Hello Kitty gods heard you ;)
nice! i was lucky enough to catch Royal Laurel on one of those SEA temporary 777s in the fall. glad to see Royal Laurel expanding to more cities.
(but yes, definitely also do Royal Laurel on a Hello Kitty plane -- great stuff! http://first2board.com/wanderlusty/2013/11/24/kawaii-overload-eva-airways-hello-kitty-jet-x-2-business-class/ )