I am sitting in Emergency Exit seat 47B on this China Airlines (Taiwan) Boeing 747-400 aircraft bound for Taipei. This is a large, albeit old plane, with a 3-4-3 configuration, but comfortable for this 3 hour flight.

This one-way ticket was purchased using only 10,000 Air France/KLM miles (SkyTeam). And I am impressed all round.

Besides the seat, which is a little old-school and narrow (being an Emergency Exit seat), the service, food, entertainment options and earlier-than-scheduled arrival time exceeds my expectations.

The meal service begins shortly after we reach altitude and we are offered a choice of Thai-style Massaman pork or chicken. This is accompanied with a warm bread roll, Thai glass noodle salad, fruit and a Thai coconut jelly dessert. Very tasty indeed. And red wine. Yes, not too shabby either and the flight attendants come around with refills.

There are a number of movie options and I decide on ‘Geostorm’ with Gerard Butler. Perfect for a short journey to break up the time; yet probably better suited to a larger screen than the foldaway in-seat TV my seat has.

After the movie I am moorish and ask for a whiskey and some snacks. With a smile the flight attendant says certainly and gives me five packets of mixed snacks with a wink 😉- ‘…you can share them if you like’.

We land 10 mins ahead of schedule.

Rating: 8/10