Flight Review: STARLUX Airlines Business Class A321neo
Flight#: JX725
From: Taipei-Taoyuan (TPE)
To: Kuala Lumpur (KUL)
Flight time: 4h 30min
Aircraft: Airbus A321neo
STARLUX Airlines is a relatively new airline (launched its first flights in 2020) operating out of Taiwan. STARLUX has an interesting story, with its founder being a member of one of Taiwan’s most prominent business dynasties and being previously related to its, now competitor, EVA Air.
Unlike many other airlines that are starting up these days, rather than opting for a low cost model, STARLUX Airlines has gone for a full service product. Not only that, but actually STARLUX aims to be at the very top of the market in terms of service, while still remaining within the commercial airline space.
STARLUX operates a mixed narrow-body/wide-body very modern all-Airbus fleet (made of A321neo, A330neo and A350-900 aircraft) out of Taipei-Taoyuan (TPE). The airline’s center of gravity is in Asia (though remarkably the Chinese mainland is absent from its network), although the US, particularly the West Coast, is currently the focus of its long-haul expansion, with flights to Los Angeles (LAX) and San Francisco (SFO) having been launched in the second half of 2023 and the airline becoming an active sponsor of several American professional sports teams.
So, I was keen to see what this new airline has to offer and the opportunity arose during a recent trip to Asia. What follows is my flight report of STARLUX Airlines flying their A321neo on business class (I flew another segment on Economy and will publish the corresponding flight review as well!)
The flight was provided courtesy of STARLUX Airlines. Opinions are all my own.
STARLUX Airlines Galactic Lounge at Taipei-Taoyuan (TPE)
UPDATE: barely a couple of weeks after my visit to Starlux Airlines’ Galactic Lounge at Taipei Airport, the airline inaugurated a brand new and much larger business class lounge! Here is a summary of what to expect at the new lounge (so, for good or for bad, the section about the lounge in this review, is, I am afraid, outdated!)
Since Tapiei-Taoyuan (TPE) is STARLUX Airlines’ home base, it has its own lounge at the airport.
The lounge is located airside, past the security and passport controls, one floor above the main boarding gates area. You can find it along a corridor next to other airline lounges.
STARLUX is a relatively small airline (some may even call it “boutique”!) and this shows in the size of the lounge, that is not too big, but the space is more than enough.
In fact, if you look at the fleet and number of flights and business class seats, there aren’t that many that could be using the lounge simultaneously! So, the experience is as it should be: rather calm and relaxed, with a good number of sofas and armchairs and also some desks for people that need to work.
In fact, the ratio of staff to travellers was notable, which ensures that the service is good and everything is impecably clean!
There is a buffet area with a selection of cold and some hot dishes plus snacks, deserts and drinks.
The selection is not huge, but I’d say very appropriate for the volume of people using it and, also, as we shall soon see, the food onboard is rather substantious and tasty, so you don’t want to get too full before getting boarding your flight!
Interestingly, they are being prepared right there and you can see the chef working through a large glass panel separating the buffet area from the kitchen.
There is also an à-la-carte menu, with the chef preparing breakfast or lunch on demand, but, as mentioned earlier, saved myself for the inflight meal experience.
The lounge has its own dedicated wifi network (although I must say the general TPE wifi works pretty well), a giant TV screen on one of the walls and a rack with a broad selection of Chinese and English language newspapers and magazines.
As an anecdote, I was in Taiwan on the day of a presidential election that matters a lot for China-Taiwan relations right at a time of heightened tensions, so most of the international media outlets were focused on Taiwan.
Reading about it from Taipei airport kind of felt a bit like being at the center of the global news!
By the way, the lounge doesn’t have its own restroom, but there are some next door on the same corridor and, I guess, shared with at least some of the other lounges.
The Cabin
STARLUX Airlines operates a very modern fleet and it shows in its A321neo, which has been designed by BMW Group Designworks (a division of the famous German automaker).
This time I was the first to board the aircraft so I could have a look at the empty plane and it really looked like out of the factory. Very clean and smelling of new!
As you can see, STARLUX has opted for a palette of brown and earthy tones, in line with the airline’s brand. This is an elegant choice that gives it quite warm atmosphere (it reminded me a bit of Etihad's business class!)
It is also interesting how STARLUX has fitted its narrow-body (A321neo) fleet with proper business class seats (of course, “short-haul” flights in Asia tend to be longer than the equivalent in Europe, but, still, fits well with the upmarket positioning of the airline).
Although these are not “suites”, there are these rigid dividers that give a considerable degree of privacy (actually, I almost didn’t notice my neighbour for most of the flight!).
The seat doesn’t recline it to 100% fully-flat position, but it gets quite close. There is also lots of space to stretch your legs (apparently the foot rests are slightly larger on the first row, where I was seating) and also, if you feel like it, to go across onto the aisle without disturbing your neighbour.
On the left side of the seat you find the controls for the seat position and recline, together with the controls for the IFE system and a pocket for magazines and other stuff.
There is also quite a lot of space between the edge of the arm rest and the divider, so, even if is likely not designed for it, you can leave quite a lot of stuff there, even a glass (as you can see, kind of, in the picture above).
On your right side and slightly back you find the in-seat power outlets, including USB and the outlets for charging devices and plugging in the IFE headphone set. In front of the power outlet rack there is quite a lot of (open) space on the surface to leave personal items.
The position is a bit awkward in that you need to turn at an angle to reach this area, but, on the plus side, it keeps cables and devices out of the way so that they don’t interfere with your the space where you are sitting (or laying down).
Upon boarding you get a pair of very slippers and a headphone set. You can see that both are pretty solid and good quality and they come with their respective receptacles.
Note the texture and softness of the sleepers, btw!
The STARLUX-branded blanket, which is made of recycled plastics, deserves a mention too. Like the slippers it is super fluffy and soft!
Last, but not least, here is a snap of the lavatory, complete with a flower and STARLUX-branded toiletries.
Food and Drink
Food is, undoubtedly, one of the strong points of the STARLUX experience!
It starts with a welcome (soft) drink (and a touch of pineapple flavour).
Next comes an appetizer, which you can see below.
But this was not yet the starter, which arrived next, along with the champagne.
As you can see in the. next set of pictures, I selected the chicken salad as entrant and the halibut as main.
It really tasted as great as it looks here and I was pretty much full by the time the dessert arrived! This was not also very substantious, but also pretty good, particularly the matcha green tea ice-cream you can see in the background.
I also liked the detail that they put a lid on the coffee.
The selection of beverages was also quite broad and STARLUX takes pride in the fact that it has partnered with a renowned mixologist to create a couple of signature cocktails for its business class.
Inflight Entertainment (IFE)
Each STARLUX business class seat is fitted with a 15.6-inch seatback screen that gives access to quite a broad selection of movies and series as well as to a moving map to track your flight.
I liked the fact that, while the movie selection is possibly not the largest out there, it is broad and diverse enough and also the system is pretty uncluttered and very easy to navigate.
Oh! And there is also an animated safety video (couldn’t be otherwise, having seen on the previous days wandering around Taipei how Taiwanese people seem to love cartoons and animation!)
STARLUX fleet is also equipped with internet broadband, the so-called “Galactic Wifi” service, provided by SITA ONAIR.
The service is free for business class passengers and I could see for myself that it works very smoothly (passengers on other service classes can access it for a fee, although some basic functions, like messaging can be used for free as well).
Last but not least on the entertainment department: the inflight magazines.
Interestingly for a recently launched airline, STARLUX Airlines has not done away with the inflight paper magazine. In fact, it offers two magazines, the inflight magazine proper, which was actually pretty nice, and a shopping one.
Our Take:
STARLUX Airlines positions itself as an upmarket carrier and it really delivers on this promise.
The state of the aircraft, the seat, food and service were all top-notch. The airport lounge is small, but it fulfills its function.
Happy to report the +4h of this flight went by really fast. If Starlux is able to deliver this nice experience on the narrow-body A321neo, I can only imagine what it must be like on the A350s that operate STARLUX Airlines’ much longer trans-Pacific services.