Taiwan's EVA Air is about to start flying its first Boeing 787-9, and the Dreamliner marks the debut of a new Royal Laurel business class seat for the Star Alliance member.

The updated Royal Laurel Class business class seats have been styled by BMW's Designworks company, which made a deliberate decision to step away from conventional aircraft design and rethink the seats and the overall business class cabin based on more fundamental concepts of space.

“We wanted EVA’s business class experience to be fresh and memorable for passengers and to make service, design and brand all work together,” said Johannes Lampela, Design Director at BMW Designworks’ LA Studio. “Our goal was to take a proven seat platform and make it unique to EVA."

EVA's 26 Boeing 787 business class seats are arranged in a 1-2-1 layout, and like the cabin itself they're dressed in muted colours.

Each seat is a comfortable 23 inches (58.4 cm) wide, reclining into a fully flat bed of 76 inches (193cm).

 

Premium passenger-friendly touches include adjustable privacy panels between the paired middle seats...

...generous built-in storage cabinets...

... a wide seat-side shelf plus an extra-large tray table for working inflight...

... and a massive 18 inch HD touchscreen display.

LED lighting schemes provide hints of colour throughout the flight, from this soothing blue...

... to a brighter sunrise.

EVA expects to take delivery of four Boeing 787-9 jets this year, followed by the Boeing 787-10 in the second quarter of 2019, building to a total 24 Dreamliners by 2022.

The first EVA Boeing 787-9 will fly between Taipei and Hong Kong from late October, with the second Dreamliner appearing on flights to Japan.