Air China

✅ Trip Verified | Auckland to New Delhi via Beijing. Worst experience of my life. Flight took off from Auckland, flew for a few hours, then the pilots realise that there is an engine problem and lands back at Auckland. Then they kept misleading the passengers to wait for an hour, to get the problems solved, but kept delaying more. Eventually we are told to return the next day for the next flight. No compensation provided. No hotel rooms provided. Passengers were stranded from different locations without even knowing if the airline will book further connecting flights or not. No courtesy towards passengers. Rampant language problem. The flight hostess didn't even understand English. We were stranded in Auckland for a day, sleeping in the airport. After returning to check in counter the next day, they didn't take our issue or priority and we were the third last people to get our boarding passes, that too through a different route. But the next flight got delayed as well by over 8 hours. Now we are stranded here, and going to miss our connecting flights again. The airline staff are very rude and not being helpful in our matter.

✅ Trip Verified | Bangkok to London via Beijing. Boarding was a disaster! Family of 5 with pushchair was so disorganized. No care given and despite pushchair requested at the gate at Beijing it went through to baggage claim which at 1.30am and the immigration nightmare that awaited us this was a real issue. The aircraft was too hot and on board staff were unhelpful with helping with seat location and general assistance with luggage and narrow aisles whilst carrying children. Children’s meals were placed in front of the children and the foil containing the food was piping hot. Very dangerous. I told the hostess who remained emotionless and walked off expressionless. 5 hrs into the flight I was told I could not listen to my music on iPhone? Seats are very uncomfortable. Inflight entertainment is ok however the handset is dated to the 1980s so it doesn’t work and frustrates you trying to access films. Toilets are disgusting and not maintained by crew. Urine on floor and no toilet roll replenishment. I will never fly Air China ever again. Avoid!

✅ Trip Verified | Tokyo to Houston via Beijing. My flights to and from Japan were fine. As far as the flight, outside of the casual method of boarding everyone at once, the flight had no problems. The food was typical airline fare. The attendants were friendly. The entertainment was a little glitchy but it didn't ruin my experience. They say not to use digital devices onboard but that didn't seem to be enforced on either of my flights. I'm sure some people might think this review is a plant (related to an employee even) but I want people to know that I had a normal flying experience and think staff should get credit where credits due. They worked hard to make passengers happy. If not for a flight that had more connections, I'd consider flying with them considering the bargain price.

✅ Trip Verified | New York to Tokyo via Beijing. I chose to fly Air China to my recent trip to Tokyo and I really regret it. I chose it for the really affordable price and booked it through my chase ultimate rewards, as some others had mentioned it is impossible to check in online therefore although I was able to chose my seats when booking my flight I had a hard time changing it and I wasn't able to choose my meal options. They do feed you a lot on the plane, but the food was disgusting, like even their rice was bad (tasted like paste with a play-doh consistency) - coming from an airline that has "China" in it is shocking since most Asian diets consist of rice. Since I don't eat a lot of meat I asked the flight attendant if she had a vegan or fish option and she said she will check but completely forgot about it and when she came around to ask what everyone wanted to drink I asked her again and she finally went in search of my vegan meal. She came back with it but gave me an attitude saying I should request it ahead of time next time - if your site had given me the option to trust me I would have! The bread isn't fresh and taste stale so I pretty much ate nothing throughout my whole 12 hour flight to Beijing (layover) thankfully my reserve card enabled me to have access to the premium lounges and I chose Air China first class lounge. The food was okay I suppose, there was a good variety of hot food and the staff are attentive at cleaning up the plate and the bathroom is clean, literally I threw a tissue in the garbage can and a cleaning lady went in right after me picked it up and tossed it outside... anyways they have an open bar with limited alcohol, but their noodle station was a big hit and although I had to camp for it got myself a few bowls of these to make up for the terrible flight meal. The recliner seats in the first class lounge is trash, ripped seats and doesn't recline unless you decide to throw all your weight into leaning back then it might budge, the private rooms are the worst! Broken ripped massage chairs with a box of tissue in front I felt like I would catch something just sitting on the chair. The worst part bout this airline was that they damaged my luggage and it's nearly impossible to get through to them at their jfk line or via email. The staff that does answer the phone are rude, I submitted a claim a week ago and finally got a response asking me to send them everything I sent in the first email, like do you not read?

✅ Trip Verified | Bangkok to Washington-Dulles via Beijing. For the price paid for the ticket, I can't complain. Check-in was 30-45 minutes at BKK and IAD. Staff were friendly and checked my baggage through with no hassles. No bag-drop line for those who check in online at either airport so one has to queue with everyone else in economy. The online check in on their flight didn't work for my return flight to BKK which put me in a middle seat for the Beijing to Bangkok leg. IFE was OK. There were power ports for laptops in economy on Boeing 777-300ER flights. Food was edible. Beer and wine were available. Flight attendants were reasonably friendly and came through every so often with water. 60-80 minutes is a tight connection through T3 in Beijing so if you're on a tight connection, get a Air China sticker from staff and they'll escort you to the front of the transit-security line after your boarding pass is checked. Overall, decent service and worth a shout if you can get a cheap ticket.

✅ Trip Verified | I guess this could be a good introduction to the rest of Chinese culture but wow, this airline is annoying. First the employees wake you up every time drinks or food is offered during the red eye. I was planning to sleep the whole flight and this didn't help. Then they make sure you turn your phone off completely as they don't believe in airplane mode like the rest of the world. I couldn't watch downloaded shows because staff would constantly get onto me about it. Inflight entertainment is awful, almost all of it exclusively in Chinese. Seats are also cramped. One time I also got some extremely disgusting porridge on the flight.

✅ Trip Verified | New York to Beijing. Air China have no customer service, my flight was in the early morning I missed my flight the check in people could not help told me to call office which opens at 9:00 eastern time. After the long wait, you get and agent that can not rebook the flight because they need to recalculate fees. The accounting department does not get in until later. I was told to wait 3-4 hours for the price. The fees are so excessive the agent warmed me ahead of time. I was charged 3 times the amount i paid, on top of what I paid. The ticket only states that rebooking they will recalculate fees so that leaves them free to charge what they want. I could have booked a cheaper ticket on the spot going to Expedia but then they were going to cancel my return flight and I was returning with my friend which was already there. We were returning together. I tried to avoid the fees but in the end they control the situation. I understand fees but basically I was overcharged and nothing I could do. The service is very poor. The flight attendants are curious, food is awful, entertainment if it works, is poor same movies on the return flight. The web site is also very primitive with google translation from Chinese. In addition, the return flight was from a small Chinese city, none of the agents speak English, not helpful. This airline is not customer oriented and not up to par with Star Alliance airlines. I do not recommend the airline, very unprofessional and not helpful to customers. There are plenty of other airlines.

✅ Trip Verified | Tokyo Haneda to London via Beijing. You get what you pay for, we got these tickets cheaply and now we see why. Check in at London was fine we could use the self check in and bag drop. However it was annoying that we couldn't check in online or select our seat but an email to air china allowed us to select our seats. The aircraft was old and shabby, my arm rest was missing the top of it so for the 11 hour flight was very uncomfortable and I had to put a pillow on it. The seats for a long haul flight were very uncomfortable and cramped. Leg room is very limited, the in flight entertainment is rubbish. The screens and remotes are very old and unresponsive and the choice of films are old and very limited. The food wasn't great it was a choice of rice and chicken or beef and rice. The drinks service was lacking also I'm glad I brought my own water or I would have gotten very dehydrated! The experience on our flight back was horrendous, we arrived to the airport with plenty of time to check in. However the self check in machines wouldn't work so we had to go to the desk which had a long queue. I have never experienced a check in desk crew who were so disorganised and useless, rather than opening more desks for the growing line they closed them. At one point there were two business class desks and no economy desks open. It took us over 1 hr 30 to get checked in and made it to our gate with 10 minutes to spare. I would suggest to the staff that rather than running around between desks just open more desks! Honestly I wouldn't fly with them again, I would rather spend more money to fly with a decent airline with good aircraft for a long haul flight.

✅ Trip Verified | London to Bangkok via Beijing. Worst airline I've ever flown on and worst airport I've had the misfortune of spending 7 hours in (Beijing). Rude staff, slow check in (1.5 hours at Bangkok!), Terrible processing at Beijing, late with no explanation, awful food and planes falling apart. No entertainment on the 5 hour flight. Don't do it.

✅ Trip Verified | I have booked an Air China flight from Los Angeles to New Delhi via Beijing. It was for 3 family members and myself. I used Air China website of to buy the ticket. Flight departure time was 10 AM, from LAX airport. We were checking around 8 am when Air china customer service agent denied me boarding because in their reservation system my name was misspelled. They told me they can't release my boarding pass and I had to call customer call center, when I called their customer service number, no one picked up phone for 45 minutes. They denied me boarding and kept us waiting for more than an hour. Finally after multiple discussion with unfriendly Air China agents, they gave me back my checked-in luggage and said they can’t help me. We had to wait for 9 hours on LAX and booked a different flight 4 times expensive than the existing one. Check the specifics on ticket as soon as you get the booking confirmation, I take full responsibility of that, but customer care is responsible to help customers! Choose the airline carefully, less price doesn't mean better value.