Air China

✅ Trip Verified | Geneva to Hong Kong via Beijing. It was the unbeatable price that made me book and try them. One of the myths is that the planes are old. That is true and you see it from the very beginning when boarding the plane. You go through business class and it looks basic as well, just the full flat seats that remind you of business class. Economy is worse, except the seat legroom which I found better than most of the European airlines when flying long haul. The entertainment system is old and has only 1-2 movies in English, and almost unusable. It responds 5 seconds after you've pressed the button (no touch screen), the image quality is bad and the sound even worse. I had to use my headphones in order to understand something. But, the choices of foreign (not Chinese) movies was big and I had some novelties from the US, there were many European movies, a Chilean one and so on, all of them translated into English. The series were lacking the usual suspects from the US so I had to stick with the movies. Even the Chinese ones were subtitled, so after all a good surprise. The flight attendants did everything to make our trip nice and although the knowledge on English is basic (really basic), they struggled to make us feel welcome and asked if we needed something. They provided a blanket for the 3h flight from PEK to HKG. The food was average, but better than some other better considered airlines. For breakfast there was a western style one offered with omelet, chicken sausage and hash browns which wasn't bad at all. When it comes to beverages, the tea was very good, coffee so and so, the juices were nice (orange, apple, tomato) and the beer and wines (Chinese brands) were awful. I only experienced a half an hour delay once, with 12 legs flown in 2 weeks with them, so big surprise, they also land 45 minutes before schedule. Connecting in Beijing is almost a nightmare, but I have survived, give that the connecting time was decent, though not to much in order to get bored. Bottom line, Air China succeeded to impress me. I was expecting the worst and I got a fairly good economy product, better than some other airlines which should be better. I would say, you should give it a try if the price is right.

✅ Trip Verified | Hong Kong to Vienna via Beijing.. Horrible experience with Air China. Flight was late due to bad weather. Sitting on a plane. Out of nowhere went up. Circling above Hong Kong then trying to avoid the thunder storm we did not know was being ahead. Terrifying turbulence. Then 1,5 hour with total helplessness what was going on. Flight attendants did not know either. Captain speaking: "Need to land in Wuhan due to bad weather" - flight cancelled. Stuck at immigration desk (literally). Officers could not let us thru as we did not have Chinese visa - did not need any when you traveled to Hong Kong. Cannot go thru unless there is a new itinerary booked for us. It was 2am; entire airport closed till 6am. No english speaking people in Wuhan Airport. Booking system opened at 6:30am. Took ages to get a new itinerary. Surprisingly the new flight times were not able to fit each other. Long story short - after 20hrs spending in China we finally flew away home. Never ever fly with Air China.

✅ Trip Verified | Purchased a very cheap ticket (less than USD600) for Taipei to Madrid via Beijing, returning from Paris. While this was not the best airline I have flown, I got there and back on time and safely. All flights arrived early or on time. Boeing 787 was a comfortable aircraft but nothing special, while the older A330s were less so, but still acceptable. I had no major issues, although I may just have been lucky. It seems most of the bad reviews are due to delays or cancellations and lost bags (which I was lucky not to experience). The food was quite average but edible, although mostly Asian style so might not suit those who are not used to eating average quality Chinese food. It's true that the staff and attendants don't speak good English so you might also have issues there (I speak some Mandarin) and the in-flight entertainment is not great (bring a book or tablet). Also, facilities such as immigration, security, signage etc at both Beijing and Shanghai airports are poor, and while these are not the fault of the airline, they affect the customer experience. In summary, if you get a cheap ticket and remember how little you paid when you fly, you can probably consider Air China worthwhile. If you can afford to do so, you should probably fly another airline to avoid the risk of running into issues.

✅ Trip Verified | Flew short haul business from Tianjin to Seoul. I was disappointed that there is no permanently open Air China counter at the airport. for being a little bit too early i had to wait for the counter to open. For a short haul the business class is very comfortable with 2-2 configuration. I was the sole passenger in the business class so i had all the attention of the responsible flight attender. Food was okay. I had a very nice short flight.

✅ Trip Verified | I was extremely satisfied with the flight. The cabin crews are friendly, and frequent water runs over night without asking. Food is not the best but definitely edible, no menu provided. Clean airport, frequent cleaning of toilets and even happy to chat to passengers for the overnight flight in the galley. Aircraft new, seat is normal size for economy class. All flights on time, impressive considering the congestion in Beijing airport. Very satisfied and I will definitely come back.

✅ Trip Verified | Geneva to Tokyo-Narita via Beijing. Flying Air China is like taking a time machine back to the 1990s. There are some good parts, such as the fact that the seat pitch is huge. The food was generally surprisingly good and often reflected local food at the place of departure (nice Tilsiter cheese and dry meat which, ironically, you don't get on Swiss in economy). Beer and wine were offered twice, before meal times. On the other hand, the plane interior itself was probably due for an upgrade, notably the in-flight entertainment system. On both outward legs, there were individual screens with 12 channels showing 6 films on repeat (with different audio). Unfortunately only two were in English (and one channel was made up of documentaries that switched language; one Chinese moving had illegible English subtitles) and the same movies were shown from Geneva to Beijing (10 hours) as from Beijing to Tokyo (3 hours) so I was rather bored. My return leg from Shanghai to Frankfurt did have touchscreens with a good selection, though. The staff were pleasant - decent English skills and I felt like someone came around offering water every 10-15 minutes for the whole flight each time. On all four legs, the plane had a recorded announcement from the flight's "safety officer" listing behaviours that were illegal under Chinese law (climbing on seats, trying to open exits in-flight, preventing cabin attendants from going about duties), the staff then turn off the lights and ask for windows to be closed straight after the meal (even when it's only mid-afternoon at the point of departure) and at the end, the purser thanks the passengers for their cooperation. It all felt about pre-empted riot prevention. Two legs delayed by an hour - at least one was due to air traffic control restrictions which is not Air China's fault as such, but something you have to consider if you choose to transit through any airport in PRC. Also worth knowing is that they will put you up in a cheap hotel near-ish the airport if you have an overnight layover but you have to know to ask. All in all, it was fine given that it was 30% cheaper than the competition but I couldn't help feeling jealous of the passengers flying on CA's code-shares served by ANA's 787 and Lufthansa's A380. GVA-PEK-NRT; KIX-PVG-FRA

✅ Trip Verified | Shanghai to Milan. I just came back from a 2 week trip across China and I found myself flying with Air China multiple times over that span of time. I was skeptical about this airline in the first place, but I had no choice since the flights were already included in the travel packet. What can I say, it lived up to my lowest expectations, and the worst were international routes, especially the one from Milan to Beijing. We flew on an A330 but the aircraft looked as old as the hills and was impossibly noisy, so much so that I had serious trouble following the movies I was watching. Corridors are narrow and the space between seats is very limited and their entertainment offer is mostly made of Chinese movies. On top of that, my monitor was completely dead and there was no way to bring it back to life. I pointed it out to the flight attendants many times and they kept coming and going first trying to fix it themselves and then saying they'd try to reset the whole system, but to no avail. Luckily there was a spare seat in the row in front of me so I moved there, only to find out that the guy who had been previously sitting there had moved away himself because that monitor wasn't working properly either. As it turned out, it was insanely slow and some buttons on the remote weren't working (yeah there were remotes if you're wondering, the ones you pull out of the seat and then back in), but hey that was as good as it went! The service was virtually non existent - the crew only stopped by twice for meals and that was it. If you wanted water you had to look for them yourself and ask for it and they would come and pour you a glass of water. As for the food, I didn't touch anything because it was terrible. Overall it made for a very uncomfortable flight. A guy sitting next to me told me he had flown with Air China in the past for work, but he didn't recall it to be that bad and that the aircraft looked the same as the one he had flew in 10 years ago. This said, it should hardly be surprising that I was dreading the idea of having to take internal flights as I was expecting those aircrafts to be even older. I was pleasantly surprised instead since their internal routes turned out to be much better. The aircrafts were just regular airbuses and they were quiet enough. Oh one more thing, the pilots' English is barely understandable, I'm no native speaker but I'm fluent in English so I don't have any trouble with listening, but these pilots are the worst! Flight attendants are slightly better, but don't venture beyond basic stuff or else you'll lose them. In summary, the only plus is that it's is way cheaper than any other airline and offers highly competitive fares, however if you have a choice pick another airline at least for your long-haul flight! With hindsight, I would probably had paid a little bit more and bought the flight with Etihad or Lufthansa, even with a layover.

✅ Trip Verified | Sydney to Beijing via Brisbane. Have just returned from a holiday to China flying both ways with Air China. It was a series of disasters. We arrived at Sydney International Airport to be told that our first leg to Brisbane was with Virgin and left from the Domestic Terminal. Admittedly this may have been the fault of our tour company (Cruise 1st). We were then told that we were sitting 4 rows apart on opposite sides of the plane. We later learnt that 140 people who had booked through Cruise 1st were all in the same boat. We were told at Check in that we would have to arrange ourselves once the plane had taken off. We did do this but it was a bit of a disaster. We were one of the lucky couples who got to sit next to each other. One meal out of 5 we could eat - many others could not eat their meals either. They were disgusting. Ate a bread roll (cold, old and in cellophane) and a small entree salad. We had an 8 hour layover in Chengdu on our way back from Shanghai (Cruise 1st only let us know this when it was too late to cancel). Due to our cruise ship being delayed by fog some were late to the airport in Shanghai. There were 40 people in the queue to check in when they closed the desk and would not listen to any complaints. These people had then to all catch alternative flights from Shanghai to Chengdu costing between $400 and $550 pp. The plane then proceeded to stay at the gate for about 30 mins after the final person was on board. This was actually a domestic flight in China. Needless to say will never fly with Air China again.

✅ Trip Verified | New York to Phuket via Beijing. Do Not fly Air China. I had read the bad reviews but chose to ignore them, boy was I wrong! First we missed our connection in Beijing due to Air China not landing or deboarding on time. We circled the airport for over 45 min then they didn't let us out of the flight for another 30+min. Because of this we missed our first day of vacation and we weren't able to stay at our first hotel. After being given the run around via multiple emails and phone calls, they refused to compensate our room. Then on the way back they delayed our layover over 4 hours, with no explanation! I've never experienced such flippant customer service. If I could rate them a zero I would!

✅ Trip Verified | Beijing to Wuhan. There is so much wrong with this airline, it is difficult to figure out where to start. From their website which you have to be a member of to book a flight, to their check-in staff, to the flight crew in the air and beyond, this airline is a disaster. I am not sure how they function domestically let alone internationally or how on earth they have become a part of the Star Alliance Group. The majority of their flights are domestic, as it is a state run airline, so answerable to no one and regulated by some rather questionable practices. So, I suppose I answered my own question. Check in is by someone who speaks very little English. They offer very little service especially if you are a priority member but not part of their program. They mislead you and tell you that you are on this type of airline. An agent in Beijing when I asked to upgrade on an A320 told me that there was only First Class available at some insane amount. I know the configuration of the short-haul flight and there is no First Class on this flight. On another occasion I was seated in an exit row, and on the return flight they stated they could not seat a non-Chinese national in an exit row. This was a flight taken both within the country. On a flight from Wuhan to Beijing, the flight started to taxi, was just off the ground and at around 2000ft when, the flight attendant came on and started the” “Ladies and Gentlemen, please prepare for take off” speech while we had already left the ground and were not just taking off but where already in air. Well.. at least she remembered to make the announcement. Air China Planes: The planes are old and the interior is falling apart. Seat-back with the cloth from the 80’s coming of, cracked tray tables on the “updated planes”, screens that do not come down (no there are not screens on the backs of the seats), the speakers too loud or too quiet when they make announcements beyond that, the inflight entertainment is what most airlines had 20 years ago. They cram and cancel flights to force people on other flights, to fill them. The flight crew, in general, cater to their own people. They storm by offering headsets but assume if you are a foreigner that they can simply ignore you. If you ask for something they all of a sudden cannot understand you. Much like their airports which are also abysmal, Pudong, Shanghai, Beijing’s Capital Airport (where they change the rules of what you can carry in your luggage and what needs to be checked almost monthly, the ridiculous screening and security lines that have 1 person at the security point to check passports. Air China, while offering some higher end flight, more comparable to a true international airline on their routes do so to save face. Most of their customers either received a good deal and know nothing of this airline or had not other choice or are from the country and do not know any. Sadly this is state run, the majority of the people flying this airline speak Chinese and travel within China, and they are pretty much brainwashed into thinking it is the