China Eastern Airlines Passenger Reviews and Customer Trip Reports

China Eastern Airlines customer travel guide
		China Eastern Airlines Business Class Lounge Reviews		China Eastern Airlines 3-Star Airline Ranking
		China Eastern Airlines Economy class seat reviews		China Eastern Airlines Business class seat reviews
		China Eastern Airlines Aircraft Seat Maps		China Eastern Airlines Passenger seat tips

China Eastern Airlines customer review :  3 April 2011 by Punit Yagnik   (India)

Shanghai to Beijing and Changsha to Shanghai. I Frankly i expected better from China Eastern. Given a sandwich and a drink to Beijing (2 hours), Changsha -Shanghai given a drink. Rushed service. Flights on time. Leg room was ok. Cabin crew disinterested but polite. Cabin announcements were audible. Not very impressive.

China Eastern Airlines customer review :  16 March 2011 by J Williams   (USA)

Friendly staff and they spoke pretty good English (enough to communicate well with). Enjoyed the food. An hour into the flight, the restrooms had urine and toilet paper all over the seats and floor and were very messy - and not attended to once during the flight. Of the 5 movies that were played, we only got to see 2 all the way through because of technical problems or they ended the films early. Power outlets all around me did not work and the flight attendant said that many of them did not work.

China Eastern Airlines customer review :  4 March 2011 by D Ye   (Singapore)

SIN-PVG flight was horrible. Old A300, as expected since the fares were twice as low as Singapore Airlines. Little inflight entertainment, my in seat radio malfunctioned, TVs that dropped down from overhead were so old that we could barely see the safety instructions shown. Meals below average. Rowdy Chinese passengers at the back of the plane had a minor issue with the duty free and basically stood for almost the entire duration of the flight, passengers wanting to use the rear lavatory were afraid to walk there, cramped the front lavatories and caused an extremely long queue. Cabin staff did little to calm them down. Seat was so old, could not get a bit of sleep during the flight. Return flight was worse, the boarding was a torture, bus took 15 minutes to drive us to our plane and extremely remote part of the airport and made us wait in the -1 degrees celsius cold weather before we could walk the boarding stairway.

China Eastern Airlines customer review :  4 March 2011 by R Wong   (Japan)

Shanghai to Shenzhen on A319. Check-in and boarding smooth. The flight was full so the cabin was cramped. Cabin clean and crew were attentive. Meal was a joke but a huge portion. Generally a good flight.

China Eastern Airlines customer review :  6 February 2011 by A Chen   (USA)

LAX-PDG. Check in was quick, boarding on schedule. Drinks good (free beer), main meal good however main course need to be much better. Most of the time bathroom are clean. Movies poor quality and no selection. FA attentive. Power outlet in front of seat - most do not work or work intermittently which is very frustrating.

China Eastern Airlines customer review :  29 January 2011 by Trisha Leib   (USA)

I thought this airline was very nice. I flew business class from Shanghai to Los Angeles, seats were comfortable and roomy. The flight staff was very courteous. Inflight entertainment did not have modern movies, but there was very good selection to choose from, food wasn't the greatest. Bathrooms were clean. Overall, a nice airline and worth it for the price.

China Eastern Airlines customer review :  21 January 2011 by C Braconi   (Australia)

London Heathrow - Shanghai - Melbourne. London to Shanghai was good, plane was much more modern than Shanghai to Melbourne, plenty of leg room made a comfortable journey and staff were very attentive, spoke good English and well presented. Food was good and bathrooms were clean and well maintained. Shanghai to Melbourne was not as comfortable, legroom was much less, staff very attentive and well presented, food was not quite as nice, but the bathrooms were well maintained. China Eastern only has inflight entertainment in seats for First and Business class Passengers. Economy class have about 3 screens that pop down from the roof, the London to Shanghai leg they were all recently released to DVD big American movies but Shanghai to Melbourne leg had only Chinese Movies. For the amount we paid I was satisfied with what we received, but as with all long international flights, comfort and entertainment are often preferred so if personal inflight entertainment is required, this is probably not the best option.

China Eastern Airlines customer review :  17 January 2011 by D Ng   (USA)

SHA to SZX. Absolutely horrible. I probably shouldn't have chosen my flight since the aircraft was an A300. The plane was ancient looking and bathrooms were falling apart. Baggage bins were very small. After about 10 minutes after take off, the captain announced there were engine problems (in good English too!) and that we had to return to SHA. After we landed we waited a long time on the tarmac to get off. Passengers were so rude and demanded food and all sorts of things, but when we finally got back inside the terminal, this behavior was truly justified. The airline offered excuses and told us the earliest flight would be at 8 PM. Of course passengers complained since SHA is China Eastern Airlines home and spare aircraft should be available. They made announcements only in Chinese and after a few hours to go to a certain area to get compensation and a new boarding pass. The instructions were unclear and there was confusion. When passengers found the right location for this, there was absolute pandemonium- crowd control, anyone?

China Eastern Airlines customer review :  14 January 2011 by S Jenkins   (Korea)

I suppose for cheap tickets, we should expect cheap service, flight attendants were so unhelpful. Consistently late in take off thus backing up all the rest of the flights. We flew from Seoul, then had a stop in Shanghai then to LAX. We were so late, we missed my brother's wedding because the flight arrived two hours after the arrival time! I would never recommend anyone to take this flight. The hotel in Shanghai is just as terrible!

China Eastern Airlines customer review :  14 January 2011 by D Sterling   (Canada)

Vancovuer-Shanghai-Bangkok return. Was impressed with the pitch and legroom in Economy Class. Check-in staff at both YVR and BKK were very helpful and efficient. Plane out of BKK was delayed however there was plenty of time for connections. Warning - the food is awful and they do not have any ice on any of the flights, for the drinks. Given that the cost of their tickets return were 20% less than the least expensive flight, the value and poor entertainment (there was none) made up for this.

China Eastern Airlines customer review :  11 January 2011 by E Davies   (UK)

We flew Heathrow-Shanghai-Nanchang on Christmas Day, fortunately flights were flying to schedule following snow. We found cabin staff friendly and helpful. in flight entertainment is limited, but happy with our choice. Seats comfortable and leg room okay, food acceptable, cabin staff happy to bring drinks on request. Down side - no online check-in, no seat reservation so we ended up with seats at the back of plane in different rows. However cabin staff asked if other passengers would mind changing seats, which they did.

China Eastern Airlines customer review :  9 January 2011 by N Mcneill   (UK)

London-Shanghai-Bangkok return. Outbound to Shanghai food okay, seat okay, crew okay. Shanghai to BKK a 5 hour delay. Zero degrees outside and we were moved to downstairs lounge with no heating - all European passengers dressed in lightweight clothing for Bangkok. Cold drinks and packets of biscuits appeared after a lot of complaining. Blankets appeared after near riot by Chinese passengers who grabbed the lot. Shanghai Chinese passengers don't do queuing! No believable reason given for delay. Return okay. Food Shanghai to London good. Seat legroom good (33G) Crew okay. There was no onboard entertainment on the ancient overhead system on the return leg - out of action according to cabin announcement. Drinks service very limited for choice and quantity. Cabin crew spoken english is variable and you have to listen hard to cabin announcements.

China Eastern Airlines customer review :  7 January 2011 by T Daws   (UK)

London Heathrow-Shanghai-Melbourne return. The plane on London leg was more modern than the other but both comfortable and enough leg room. The service was polite and efficient, quality of food ranged between acceptable and good. There were no seatback TVs but did not bother me as I do not tend to use them anyway. On the way home we had an overnight stop in Shanghai, the airline pays for a hotel room in the airport hotel, although it is not obvious from their website. The hotel was fine and it was nice to have a break between flights.

China Eastern Airlines customer review :  4 January 2011 by Parminder Singh   (Canada)

Delhi to Shanghai, then on to Vancouver A340 in Economy class. This turned out to be a better airline than Air China. The food was better and a younger staff was trying its best to help. However, the communication skills of the staff are bad, as they could barely speak English. There were no personal video monitors and the entertainment was limited to overhead monitors with a Chinese, one Hollywood and one Bollywood movie shown in turn. Not your best airline but considering the price, not bad.

China Eastern Airlines customer review :  2 January 2011 by J Callaghan   (UK)

London-Shanghai-Melbourne, booked because of the price (410 Euro). I had never heard of them, never mind considered travelling with them. Staff were perfectly polite, if devoid of the pleasantness of other airlines. Food awesome compared to a number of airlines I'd flown recently. Admittedly the plane and entertainment system (no PTV or English movies) were dated, but you get what you pay for. In terms of value for money it couldn't be knocked at all.

China Eastern Airlines customer review :  31 December 2010 by Michael Zhang   (China)

Shanghai - Shenzhen, A300-600R. Seat not in good condition, almost unable to open the tray table. Service not good, food horrible. A tiny bit better than last year, but still not recommended.

China Eastern Airlines customer review :  31 December 2010 by A Muntz   (USA)

China Eastern Airlines frequent flyer's program is horrible. It does not allow you to request your ticket in US or its web site. It requires you to call its Shanghai frequent flyer office which never answer the phone line. I called 5 times and paid international phone call cost but in vein. I asked my niece in China to help me. She also has similar problems. After many tries, she finally got hold a person and found out their data entry guy entered a wrong digit of my passport number. She asked me to fax a copy of my passport, frequent flyer number, and a letter to request. I did as the company requested. After that my niece again called repeated, and no one answered the phone. She finally call the consumer complaint office and got a person to tell her that she will get back to her 2 or 3 days. In the meantime, if I cannot get this ticket, I will lose 146000 miles in a week. 5. Finally, yesterday, she got a ticket. The company told her that I must go to the China Eastern's US ticketing office with my passport, my husband's passport, and my frequent flyer card to get the ticket. I am hoping that I will not have problems with the US office again. China Eastern's frequent flyer program clearly does not welcome non-Chinese passengers. I suspect that the company does not want you to use any points at all.

China Eastern Airlines customer review :  17 December 2010 by S Leslie   (Australia)

JFK-PVG-BKK Economy. I would not recommend this airline at any cost. The plane on the JFKPVG leg seemed to be a quite new A340 but no PVOD screens in economy. They then proceeded to play a variety of movies in different languages (some had both chinese and english subtitles) none of which I could be bothered to even try and watch as the screens were barely legible. Transfer process in PVGis ridiculous for a passenger whose bags are checked through and already hold a boarding pass for the following flight. Having to line up and go through immigration and then try and find my way with the non existent signage was a pain they could avoid. Once land side I don't see anything stopping me from leaving the airport except for the arctic temperatures outside! You then have to proceed through immigration again into the dullest departure area I have seen, lacklustre shops and restaurants, only positive is free wifi but in China that doesn't mean much. If this sounds bad enough the real trouble was to come. Whilst waiting for my flight to BKK I noticed on the screen that the gate was changed to a downstairs 'bus' gate, so I headed down to wait for the flight. The room was barely at a standard room temperature (it was snowing and -2 outside) and kept filling with smoke with people leaving the smoking room door open. The departure time came and passed with no mention of any delay. Approximately two hours after the scheduled departure time a person came over the loud speaker and laughably pronounced that said flight had been delayed. A snack and softdrink were offered. After another hour or so with no departure time given or reason for the delay and a large crowd starting to get heated at the gate desk they started handing out blankets, it was about midnight at this time and wasn't looking good. Eventually we boarded about 4.5 hours late being bussed out to a plane walking up snow covered steps (with multiple gates empty and not in use). The flight was uneventful, the plane did not have any screens at all in the cabin. The food on all flights was terrible. Upon landing the staff were very unhelpful with people who had lost connections just trying to palm them off. This is a joke of an airline, not sure of their safety standards but even when seat belt sign illuminated people are up and walking around, laughable English in the standard safety cards in the seatback pockets.

China Eastern Airlines customer review :  3 December 2010 by Andy Yeo   (UK)

Shanghai-London. Seats very comfortable, food terrible, cabin crew not very efficient. No personal entertainment on this long flight but worse of all - films were an Israeli, a French, an Indian and a short Chinese film but not a single video or film in English and this was a 12 hr flight to London - as far as could be seen there wasn't a single Indian traveller - as to the vast majority of them were Chinese.

China Eastern Airlines customer review :  1 December 2010 by Hermann Loy   (Singapore)

SIN-PVG-JFK return - service standards going from bad to worse. SIN-PVG an aging A320 on 5 hour flight, seats showed many signs of wear and tear. As my flight was a red-eye flight, we arrived at PVG at 0550 hrs and had a 6 hour layover before our noon flight to JFK. PVG is the most boring airport I have been too. There was a long row of shops that repeated itself throughout the length of the terminal. PVG-JFK an A340-600, 2-4-2 configuration, with 2-3-2 configuration at rows 53-56. Not a bad experience, seats were decent, there was even an in- seat adaptor, something that is not very commomly seen in other economy class seats of other airlines. However there is no personal AVOD - the shared television kept showing films that screened halfway and then repeated itself. Problem persisted on the way back JFK-PVG.

China Eastern Airlines customer review :  17 November 2010 by E Davies   (USA)

JFK-PVG-XMN. If you can afford to pay a little more for another airline, do it. There is little positive to say about this airline except that it gets you from A to B cheaply. While waiting in the JFK terminal, the China Eastern plane was inexplicably several hours late. The staff emerged and offered us one small bottle of water and a tiny brownie for dinner. When it came time to board, everybody just ran up to the counter en masse - there are no lines, which makes loading the plane much slower and inefficient. The inside of the plane was dingy at best. In my whole cabin, there were a total of three very small TVs hanging overhead which could hardly be seen from my row given the small size and weak resolution. During the 14-hour flight, only three movies were shown, but it was useless as I couldn't make out the subtitles. When the crew served breakfast, they offered me the "Western" style, which was a cube of dried egg that was supposed to be scrambled eggs. I missed my connection to Xiamen, so the airline stuck us in a pretty nice airport hotel without English-speaking assistance. I was told to be in the lobby by 6:30 am for a chartered bus to the other Shanghai airport, Hongqiao (SHA), where I would then fly to Xiamen. While showering at 6, I got a call from the hotel staff saying the bus was here and to come down immediately. But here's the most absurd thing. I haven't taken the return flights yet, but there have already been problems. I booked my December return last April. I had a flight leaving XMN at 8:20 a.m. arriving in PVG at 9:55 a.m. before a noon departure to JFK. The airline cancelled this flight, and instead of working with my travel agent, they insisted that I call their office myself. They told me that they had rescheduled me on a flight to Hongqiao (SHA) landing at 10:55 a.m. That means that assuming China Eastern lands on time (which is rare as I've seen from past experiences), I was expected to gather my bags, cross Shanghai at my own expense during lunch hour, pass security at another airport - all within an hour. The customer service representative realized that this would be impossible, so she scheduled me for a flight leaving Xiamen the night before. I asked, "So you're going to put me in a hotel, right?" Wrong. Because they had scheduled me on a flight the same day, she said, they did not put me in a hotel. She told me that neither she nor her manager had the authority to place me in a hotel and to call complaints, who could help. I called twice, waiting an hour each time. Nobody picked up. I have written their customer service team at the email stated online, and nobody has written back for weeks. I suggest you avoid it at all cost.

China Eastern Airlines customer review :  16 November 2010 by S Lai   (Australia)

Chengdu to Shanghai, Shanghai to Melbourne, Melbourne to Hobart. Chengdu to Shanghai with was delayed about 2 hours - we missed out the flight Shanghai to Melbourne. Another flight will be 24 hours later. They arranged the hotel for us to stay overnight but no words of apology. We also missed our flight Melbourne to Hobart. The staff in Melbourne airport said that we have to pay for another ticket by ourselves, as the flight from Melbourne to Hobart is not with China Eastern. During the whole experience, none of staff from China Eastern gave the word of apology.

China Eastern Airlines customer review :  3 November 2010 by Robert Radeski   (Thailand)

Bangkok to Shanghai to Los Angeles and back - I found CEA to be quite efficient, courteous and enjoyed the flight. Check-in at Bangkok was handled by Thai Airways staff and they were excellent (as they always are). I arrived early and asked for the emergency exit row on all 4 flights since I am 6/4 and got it without any problems. The flight crews were extremely polite. A340-600 between PVG and LAX were quite nice even though they did not have a personal entertainment system - but they had an outlet for my laptop and watched my own DVD's. LAX-PVG I took a a sleeping pill and slept through dinner, but flight attendant brought me a coffee and then my dinner with out my even asking. The ground crew in LA were efficient but not as polite as in Thailand and China. I would rate this airline below EVA, JAL or Thai, but ahead of any US carrier I have flown. I prefer the 777-300er, it's a much more comfortable plane than the A346. The ticket price was fantastic. Instead of using an A330 on the short flights, they used an old A300 - dingy and ugly inside but appeared mechanically sound.

China Eastern Airlines customer review :  28 October 2010 by S Goh   (Singapore)

PVG-SIN. Boarding was delayed for 30 minutes because of late arrival of aircraft. Departure was further delayed because of mechanical problem. After sitting inside the cabin for 1.5 hours, we were told to disembark and wait in the departure hall. Box dinner was served while waiting. Six hours after the scheduled departure time, we boarded another plane. Due to problem of the navigation system, the plane took off 3.5 hours later. The aircraft was an old A300. No individual screen; no movie or video was shown. Food was ordinary.

China Eastern Airlines customer review :  26 September 2010 by M Weintraub   (USA)

PVG-JFK. Flight was on time. Seats were a bit hard, but not bad. Good legroom in business class in a new A340-600. The legrests didn't go up very high, which is good because the seat in front reclines into your space. The flight attendants seemed to rush through each meal or drink service, like they had something else better to do on the 14 hour trip. They would reach over another passenger to hand me my tray or drink when they could have easily just gone down the other aisle. The food was mediocre at best, but I wasn't expecting anything better. AVOD worked, but the choice was pathetic and uninteresting. Perhaps it was better for the Chinese speaking passengers? Overall, it was better than I had expected, and relatively inexpensive when compared to US airlines. If you have to economize, then it's not a bad choice.

China Eastern Airlines customer review :  23 September 2010 by Selena Chan   (Hong Kong)

Shanghai to Hong Kong on economy. I was one of the unfortunate passengers on this flight. We weren't meant to arrive in Hong Kong at around 11:30am, but the pilot refused to land claiming bad weather condition (HK raining heavily), he took us to Hainan island! We arrived in Hainan at around 1pm, then at 2:30pm, we flew back to Hong Kong. Once again, the pilot refused to land the plane for the same reason! We were then flown back to Shanghai, it was a nightmare. Then we landed in Xiamen for an emergency! MU refuse to take any responsibilities nor compensation. Looks like I might have to purchase a one way return ticket with Dragonair to go home. A real shame on China Eastern.