China Airlines Review

I took China Airlines from Tokyo's Narita Airport to Taipei Taoyuan and back during my last trip to Taipei. I was amazing home many nonstop flights there are every day between the two cities. China Airlines has at east four flights a day, and they're not even the only airline between the two destinations. There's also Eva Air, Jetstar, Scoot, Tiger Air, and Vanilla Air. 

I've never actually been on those other airlines, but I can say with some certainty that China Airlines is the best. I was so impressed with both the comfort of the airplane and the amenities in economy class that I had to write about it. 

First, this was an Airbus A350, which is the largest plane I have been on. There were three seats on each side, and three seats in the middle, but it didn't feel cramped at all. The aisles were wide and there was probably about 6" more leg room in front of me that on Delta's Boeing flights. 

It's a small thing, but even the decoration of the walls and seats were interesting. They used a faux-wood wallpaper to give the lounge-like ambiance. 

At dusk, the plane's interior lights mirrored the outside with a radiant orange. 

In addition to the typical offerings of movies, TV shows, music, and games, their in-seat entertainment also included some useful things, like airport maps, immigration procedures, and connecting flight information. 

Their bathroom was the most spacious airplane bathroom I've ever been in. It was also the cleanest. In the course of the three hour flight I saw the attendants clean it multiple times, including spraying a scented mist every once in a while. 

Music also played in the bathroom on a loop. It was a string quartet when I went it. 

I took this photo to show how clean it was, and perhaps you can get a sense of the scale since I'm not standing right up next to the sink. 

Like most flights, I didn't eat the food, but I still appreciated the Black Tea Cookies they gave us, which were tasty and unique. 

I was also really excited and surprised to see that their juice offerings were from Greece! What is Greek juice doing on board a flight between Taiwan and Japan? Globalization....

The meal and drink service was also much more frequent that U.S. airlines. We were served one meal and three drinks in the span of a three hour flight. 

Once we landed, the airlines began playing a montage of nature images with soothing music. I assume this is to try to calm people as they get off the plane - usually they are in a frantic rush but with the video playing, the deplaning felt more relaxed.