While this has been a reliable rumor for a while, it’s finally official.
EVA Air will launch 4x weekly flights between Taipei and Houston as of July 1, 2015. They haven’t announced the exact schedule yet, though at nearly 8,000 miles one-way, this will be EVA Air’s longest route.
Furthermore, EVA Air plans on launching flights between Taipei and Chicago as of 2016, though the exact dates haven’t yet been announced.
This growth is perfectly logical on their part. EVA Air joined the Star Alliance in June 2013, and there’s no denying their membership has opened up a ton of valuable connection prospects, which allows them to serve markets that might not otherwise work.
Presently their US flights are to Los Angeles, New York JFK, San Francisco, and Seattle. Los Angeles and San Francisco are huge markets and great for connections, given that United has a large presence at both airports. Seattle has a huge Taiwanese population and is a big cargo route.
New York JFK is mostly an origin & destination market, since there aren’t many Star Alliance connection prospects out of there. I’m actually kind of surprised they haven’t transferred that flight to Newark, so that they can both serve NYC and have easy connections on United to other east coast cities.
That’s really where these two new flights add valuable. Not only are Houston and Chicago massive markets, but they’re also the two largest hubs of the Star Alliance’s largest airline. So I’m sure they’ll have no trouble filling up these flights, with decent yields to boot.
EVA Air 777-300ER business class
I’ve flown EVA Air business class several times, including:
- EVA Air Royal Laurel Class 777-300ER Taipei to San Francisco
- EVA Air Hello Kitty Royal Laurel Class 777-300ER Taipei to Los Angeles
- EVA Air Business Class A330-200 Tokyo Narita to Taipei
- EVA Air Business Class A321 Tokyo Narita to Taipei
EVA Air 777-300ER business class
They have a fantastic business class product with reverse herringbone seats. The seats, service, and drinks are great. The food leaves a bit to be desired, but then again virtually all of EVA Air’s longhaul flights are primarily at night.
EVA Air business class meal service
EVA Air award availability was amazing when they first joined the Star Alliance, though it has gotten progressively worse over time. Now they’re actually not making longhaul business class award space available to partner airlines more than ~90 days before departure. Still, within that time period award availability is generally pretty wide open.
I’ll post again when the flight opens for bookings, with information on what award availability looks like.
Do you plan on flying EVA Air’s new route between Houston and Taipei?
(Tip of the hat to Luke)
I read somewhere that EVA Air might start service from Washington-Dulles and Boston-Logan in 2018-2019. DC's Taiwanese community is not that big, but it does have a substantial Southeast Asian community. This could be very lucrative for EVA Air.
A handful of its passengers use EVA Air to travel to Southeast Asia and Mainland China. IAD lacks direct destinations to Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines.
I flew from London to Brisbane in business class in a lie flat bed after a serious
Illness and cant say enough about the service I received. Wonderful. I NOW WANT TO FLY Brisbane / Houston business class. Can you give me more information as to
Stops and hours of flying time?
I don't think eva infinity mileage isnt that bad for iah to tpe at 150k consider UA at 160k round trip..
I mean if this is based off west coast award since they dont have central award release yet.
Yes, yes, yes..... Wife would love to fly the Hello Kitty........ Happy Wife.... Happy Life
@Fabio Yes, and CI will use new 77W to fly TPE-JFK non-stop both ways from next February. Still, CI only flies three weekly flight while EVA boosts up to daily flights for awhile already. Generally speaking EVA is indeed dominating TW-North American market considering CI just continues withdrawing the flights.
This will be an exciting alternative for me to fly GUM-TPE-IAH vs my usual GUM-NRT-IAH flights. Thanks for the heads up!
@clippergoodwill5280
And now the China Airlines TPE-KIX-JFK route is gone... They're doing TPE-JFK direct, and JFK-ANC-TPE for the return leg. But they aren't allowed to sell tickets for JFK-ANC or ANC-TPE
I'm curious why EWR isn't getting more *A loving. It's interesting that EVA used to serve EWR and then soon after joining *A switched to IAD.
I'd love love love to have more foreign carriers serve EWR. Coming from DC/IAD, I can't get good connections to JFK on award tickets. Hell, I can't get good connections if I buy revenue tickets to "reposition." I settle for Amtrak because I can control my layover times quite...
I'm curious why EWR isn't getting more *A loving. It's interesting that EVA used to serve EWR and then soon after joining *A switched to IAD.
I'd love love love to have more foreign carriers serve EWR. Coming from DC/IAD, I can't get good connections to JFK on award tickets. Hell, I can't get good connections if I buy revenue tickets to "reposition." I settle for Amtrak because I can control my layover times quite well, but I still have to haul my butt out to JFK.
If there was more loving at EWR, I could 1) Get better domestic connections, and 2) Have convenient enough Amtrak service right at the airport.
One of the historical route for EVA was TPE-SEA-EWR. In mid or late 90s, EVA had also served both EWR and JFK for awhile. Then, JFK was canceled.
One interesting thing is that after CI switched its JFK service via KIX and changed the schedule, EVA moved to JFK and dropped EWR totally.
Excellent news! It's a good time to be based at IAH. In the last few years, CA and KE have moved in with new routes to the Far East, LH and EK have up-gauged to A380s, and now BR is coming to town. It's nice to have more connection options to Asia other than NRT.
for the longest time EVA was flying out of EWR (and CI was out of JFK). Now you have to take EVA "shuttle" from NJ to JFK =-( (for rev tixs only).
@lucky
I remember EVA flew to Newark until late 2013, then changed their New York destination to JFK.
@ Lucky -- even though there's no first class on EVA, it's still pretty exciting when a new destination opens up especially since Air China doesn't seem to be that great. Hoping that when they release the schedule award availability will be wide open for a a few days so I can put the Lifemiles to use :)
@ Moon -- on Star Alliance we can do IAH-PEK-HKG but Air China is no Cathay Pacific...
@ Lucky -- even though there's no first class on EVA, it's still pretty exciting when a new destination opens up especially since Air China doesn't seem to be that great. Hoping that when they release the schedule award availability will be wide open for a a few days so I can put the Lifemiles to use :)
@ Moon -- on Star Alliance we can do IAH-PEK-HKG but Air China is no Cathay Pacific for sure. Still, out of Houston options to Asia look pretty good now with Korean and EVA starting flights. Compared to that, ways to get to Europe in comfort are relatively limited -- we really need to get Austrian, I think.
I do, when I go back to HK to visit family. That can avoid me from the West Coast all together and I can just fly to HKG from TPE with a short 1.25 hours flight. Although I really wish Cathay Pacific will open the IAH-HKG direct route (understand the chance is slim considering AA has just opened the route DFW-HKG).
@Sandeep - Yep, there is a TPE-SEA flight on EVA, 3x weekly BR26. They're currently operating a B773, however it's going back to the 744 as of 02/11/2014, just only 2x daily.
Doesn't EVA also fly to SEA? Used to be a 744 and I believe switched to 772 late this summer.
Was lead to believe it was a huge cargo route for the airline.
@ Sandeep -- Whoops, good catch.
Any possibility that you'll see your Hello Kitty back on US routes, for the inaugural flights? lol
@ Terence -- If only!