Air China

✅ Verified Review | Manila to Vienna via Beijing. Cabin service has terrible English skills, and they were rude and disorganized. Entertainment system in cabin is a joke, just a few movies you can choose from, headphones quality terrible, crazy amount of ads and lastly you are going to be interrupted every 5 minutes by 'important' announcements. Lavatory very dirty. Seats, when in upright position it is very uncomfortable to sit, they are also narrow. You can choose from western food or Chinese. Both were terrible. Ground service: Depends on location, I have only neutral and unpleasant experience with ground service.

✅ Verified Review | Flew on Air China (CA969) from Beijing to Singapore. Apart from the delay due to the traffic in PEK, this flight has been impressive. The crew are friendly and helpful, and the meal is much improved and tasty. The A330 cabin is retrofitted with IFE screen. Overall, well done Air China.

✅ Verified Review | Flew Air China from Beijing to Frankfurt. The lounge at T3 Beijing airport is terrible - overcrowded, dirty, unacceptable toilets, staff do not understand more than about 3 words of English, and the food is Chinese slop. Onboard the flight, the seat is okay for a discount business class, but no privacy from your neighbour, and food is about what you expect in economy class on most European airlines. Staff were polite to start the flight and served lunch okay - but then they disappeared and call buttons were unanswered for long periods. I slept for a few hours, and on waking was amazed when I walked back through the cabin to see no less that 5 uniformed female cabin staff fast asleep on empty business class seats!! No wonder the call button is not answered. Out of the 3 other Chinese airlines I have used recently, Air China is the absolute worst, and even with a cheap ticket, I would never recommend anyone to use then.

Los Angeles to Bangkok with layover in Beijing with Air China. The trip out of the US started well. Check-in was easy, flight on time, cabin was about what I expected. The food was also decent. That is where the compliments end. However, the entertainment system is an absolute joke. At least half of the systems were busted somehow. Mine for example repeatedly froze (stewardess has to restart it), the touch screen didn't work, and only one earphone would work and you can't use your own. No wifi on the long haul flights either. And no cell phones, period! Also, they let people get their own beverages midway through the flight, which sounds alright, till you notice people openly hacking and coughing around the cart and touching everything. Then there was the transfer at Beijing. That was the worst part. They closed down the international transfer line and made everyone go back through security, and it was slow and bad. We only made our flight because it was late. Beijing to Bangkok had no inflight entertainment except for a single central screen in each cabin playing a bad Chinese film. The flight had wifi, but unless you had a laptop, you can use it. Bangkok to Beijing was same as before, including being late. Beijing was awful again. We all had to go through security again, though it was slightly faster. The layover was 7 hours and the airport has nothing to do. The free wifi didn't work for us or we couldn't figure it out. Beijing to LAX - the flight was kind of on time. We boarded on time and then sat on the plane for an hour and a half before taking off. They take your water that you bought in the airport. They have security go around before boarding and stripe any water off you. Then, our seats had some box underneath it. We already have limited leg room. The water being taken away and the box was the only new thing though. Everything else was similar. I gave up on the entertainment system. Any other gripes would just be with passengers, and the Chinese are notorious for their bad etiquette. Not Air China's fault on that.

✅ Verified Review | Flew on flight CA970 from Singapore to Beijing. Had a wonderful flight with Air Chiba. Even though the previous flight from Beijing to Singapore is delayed, our flight was on time. The onboard service has been fabulous, with friendly cabin crew, meals etc. The place of improvement is the legroom.

I recently flew Air China five times between September 19 to September 29 (Houston to Beijing; Beijing to Xi’an; Xi’an to Shanghai; Shanghai to Beijing; Beijing to Houston). I was with a travel group and the travel agent booked the trip. First of all, if you call the customer service line to pick your seat and have a meal preference, prepare to be on hold for almost an hour, pressing “1” every 7 minutes in order to stay on hold and not be disconnected and also be prepared to speak to a Chinese person that speaks little English. I had to call back 3 times and stay on hold forever before I got someone that spoke okay English. At this time I request a vegetarian meal as well and was told seat assignment and meal would be sent in a confirmation email. I never got an email. Needless to say, on the flight from Houston to Beijing, I did not have my vegetarian meal, neither did others in the group that requested one, and we all called within the time limit they request. I didn’t have a problem flying with the airline in general, until the return flight from Beijing to Houston. It was terrible enough to make me not want to fly Air China again. Another reviewer said they take your water and other drinks at the terminal before you board the plane back to Houston and they do! I was wondering what the security was doing when they came marching military style in four rows of two into the terminal (about to search bags and take drinks). I’m glad I heeded this warning. But once you get on the flight, good luck getting the flight attendants to bring you something to drink. There was a Chinese NBA players sitting behind me in economy (not joking), the whole team was on the plane, and he must have been 7 feet tall. I had an aisle seat, so one of his feet was nearly on the foot rest with mine, and the other leg was behind me with the knee jabbing me in the back. So I couldn’t recline my seat or try to relax for the 14 hour flight. I requested to the flight attendant if I could relocate and she actually looked at me annoyed and asked me why. She then told me no, the flight was full (no it wasn’t). After two hours into the flight and dude behind me driving me crazy, I asked again, and she found me a seat between two older Chinese men, both hacking and spitting - if you have been to China, you know they hack and spit everywhere, and do not cover their mouths when they cough. So I declined and went exploring the plane myself. There was a man in the next section that had an entire row to himself, stretched out sleeping, so I asked the flight attendant if I could move back there. Of course they acted irritated with me and pretended not to understand what I was asking. The young man next to me spoke Mandarin, and translated what I was saying, so they had to comply. I was more relaxed, but their funky attitudes made the flight miserable. I have never had a flight attendant lean over in my face and look at me like “what?” when I requested assistance. You are not allowed to have your phone on at all, don’t even pull it out, just leave it in your carry on. But you can use other devices. Some women in my group chose to book their own flights so they could fly on airlines they were more familiar with (ie. American Airlines) and I know to do the same next time.

Houston to Delhi via Beijing with Air China. Horrifying. I've traveled to over 50 countries and have never seen anything like this. I was unfortunate enough to have been trapped at Beijing on the 5th November when the weather caused 494 flights to be cancelled. While Air China cannot control the weather, they can control the horrific customer service provided afterwards. Here is a list of the things I endured from Air China: Rerouted to Shenyang and left on the tarmak for hours without food or water or communication as to why we weren't in Beijing. No food vouchers given at Shenyang. Stood in line for 4 hours to speak with a customer service rep and was put on a flight back to Beijing on China Southern because Air China had a mechanical error with their plane. When I got to Beijing, Air China had given my seat to someone else. No explanation, and wouldn't help me. This caused me to miss my train in Delhi and had to book a last minute flight for $100. Was forced to stand in line for 7.5 hours in Beijing to speak to another customer service representative. No hotel vouchers given. I had to sleep on the floor of the Beijing airport. No food vouchers given again. Never, ever fly with this airline.

✅ Verified Review | London Heathrow to Tokyo Haneda via Beijing. I was surprised at how bad Air China turned out to be. I had to deal with no leg room as all the seats had mysterious black boxes underneath them (see photo), terrible in-flight food, aggressive security during transfer at Beijing airport, awful toilets and Auld Lang Syne being played loudly every time we took off and landed. It was an experience.

✅ Verified Review | Tokyo HND to Stockholm via Beijing with Air China. Early morning out of HND. Lounge access was ANA. Very nice. 3 hr flight on narrow body was OK. As always transfer at PEK was a mission in itself as you need to go through passport control and very slow security check. The highlight was the PEK-ARN leg. Flatbed seat with wide footrest. Very comfortable. Food and inflight service and entertainment was standard but as this is the cheapest business class fare from Japan to Europe I can't complain. Return was FCO via PEK back to HND. FCO-PEK was a new 787-9. Nice overnight flight, but was quite full and several people were snoring loudly (can't blame the airline for that). This was my second business class trip to Europe on Air China. Language skills are getting better. PEK and FCO lounges are not that great. The rtn open-jaw flight cost approx US$1,500 booked via Air China Website. Other small gripe was that even though my luggage was tagged "priority", it was one of the last out on the conveyor when returning to Haneda.

✅ Verified Review | Hit and miss with Air China. Surprisingly this flight from Beijing to Paris CDG had cheerful, smiling flight attendants. They provided excellent service but Air China's hard product, the food, inflight entertainment, space between the seats is sub standard.