Air China

✅ Verified Review | Phuket to New York JFK via Beijing with Air China. This airline literally ruined the end of my vacation. First of all, the crew from the ticket counter to the airline stewardesses were rude. During the 13 hour flight, the food was disgusting and I was provided the equivalent of 2 dixie cups of water. When I asked for 2 more cups of water, I was told I was only allowed 1! When I asked the second time, I was told to go into the galley and get it myself. I have never been treated with such disrespect. On the way there, in my weariness from traveling 32 hours, I left my tablet in the seat pocket. When I called the airline once I got to the hotel and realized it was missing, I was told that it was not their responsibility and that I would have to deal with the Phuket airport. I called them and of course no one spoke english. Upon returning to the airport at the end of my trip, there was zero Air China customer service attendants to be found and their office was empty. To add insult to injury, while in Bejing on my 1 hour layover, the ticket attendant literally yelled at me and fellow passengers that we were 'slow' and needed to 'hurry up' to make our next flight to JFK - our plane had just arrived! Once getting to JFK, my luggage was nowhere to be found. I had to go to the Lufthansa counter to report my lost luggage becausee (surprise!) no Air China employees could be located. I was told that nothing was in the system tracking my bag and now, 4 days later, my bag is still no where to be found. I can't even file a missing bag claim with Air China because there is no customer service number and in order to file, you must mail or fax (what is this, 1980?) to a number that is provided by the local lost and found office which is unobtainable because no one answers the phone at JFK lost and found and no one returns calls. Long story short, saving money is not worth it. The $200 I had saved has now cost me over $2500 in lost valuables with no remediation.

Chengdu to Tokyo. The crew service is horrible and they have major attitude issue. The food is lousy, and no inflight entertainment on a 5 hour flight. They close the washroom before landing 20 mins in advance. Even it is urgent, crew doesn't allow passenger to use toilet after it is closed. All mobile devices are not allowed to use during the flight. (Editor Note: it is the CAAC in China, not the airline, that apply cabin securing times and ban use of mobile phones in flight mode)

✅ Verified Review | I flew Air China from London Heathrow to Hong Kong via Beijing return. I booked the tickets with Air China because they were extremely cheap at £340. I was prepared for a bad experience but I was pleasantly surprised. The cabin was relatively spacious in 3-3-3 layout, better than Emirates who use 3-4-3. The IFE system was pretty good with an alright selection of movies. Not as many as you might have on Emirates, BA etc but enough hollywood movies in English to entertain you for an 11 hour flight. There are about twice as many Chinese films as there are English. On my outbound the showcase film was Star Wars VII and on return it was The Revenant: a better selection than expected. Each seat came with a blanket and a pillow - the pillow was comfortable. Food was ok, choices of one meat with rice or a different meat with noodles and for breakfast a choice of Chinese (congee etc) or Western (omelette etc). The food and drink selection has nothing on other airlines but you get what you pay for. Flight were on time and flight attendants were attentive with good English and regular water services. On the return trip they lost my luggage in PEK. The bag was delivered to my home 4 days later but I had to make the calls to HKG and PEK Air China baggage offices to chase it up as the agent in London couldn't tell me even if the bag made it on the first flight. Overall very pleasantly surprised with Air China, excellent value for the money paid. Caution with checked baggage, I know I was unlucky and everyone else's bags arrived, but I would fly with Air China again especially for that price.

✅ Verified Review | After buying a great price ticket to Tokyo with Air China, regretted it after reading reviews. In the event I had a good flight. Everything was on time, service was just fine. The food was ok - better than I've had on some flights with other airlines. I had a screen on the seat in front with 40-50 movies to watch, some of which were pretty new releases / blockbusters. I couldn't see what the problem was. My cushion had a tiny stain on it, at this price - big deal. I have to wonder what people expect when buying a bucket shop ticket - it got me there, which was all I expected but it was a very pleasant flight. My onward flight to Tokyo was similarly good but without the inflight entertainment. Have to say that after 11 hours in economy my posterior was starting to complain. I kept waiting for bad stuff I'd read about to occur and it never did. Maybe I got lucky but I thought it was great value for the money I paid. BA or ANA would have cost me almost double what I paid and I would use Air China again without hesitation and, they didn't lose my luggage on a 1hr 20 transit and the staff were nice to me.

✅ Verified Review | Frankfurt to Hong Kong via Beijing with Air China. First they changed our return flight from a 2hr layover to 14hrs then back to 2hrs the day we checked, in causing us to lose money on the booked hotel since they didn't notify us about the second change. They ran out of toilet paper and paper towels by the end of both long flights and didn't replenish the supplies. All three of our IFE touch screens were incredibly difficult to manipulate and the movie choices were many - but few western choices so stretch them out. The stewardesses wore a scowl most of the time other than exiting, and they ran out of western food choices by mid plane where we sat on both legs, leaving chinese pudding for breakfast and seafood with noodles or chicken and seafood with rice (the western choice ) for dinner. If you can't tolerate seafood then bring your own. They also broke the wheel off one of our suitcases and took a portable phone charger and all lighters at the airport. I would recommend using a different airline if possible when traveling through China. The seats did seem to have a bit more space.

Sydney to Vancouver via Beijing with Air China, and it is the worst airline I have ever experienced. Small seats, terrible food, undrinkable Chinese beer and whiskey (no spirits). I counted 5 Hollywood films on the entertainment system, the rest are Chinese. Two weeks after I booked, they changed my stopover time from 1.5hrs to 8 hours in Beijing. No explanation or apology. After I complained, they offered to compensate me by giving me lounge access. But not to the Air China lounge, it was a privately run lounge which can only be described as a dump. Moldy couches, no real food, terrible wifi; I was better off in the airport.

✅ Verified Review | London to Manila via Beijing and my first Time to fly Air China. It was the cheapest flight we could find. Travelling with 2 children under 5 years we were not allowed to check in online hence we could not request children's meal. At Heathrow airport we were left to stand in queue for 10 mins before the gates open and only priority boarding for 1st class and business class passengers. Elderly people and family travelling with children were not allowed to board early. The aircraftsare not the latest but they are in good condition, the stewardess mostly speak Chinese so they do not understand us when we request something in English but they tried their best. As having small children I underestimated the amount of nappy I brought along, and in the whole of Beijing airport there was not a chemist or a pharmacy or any store to buy baby stuff ie nappy. The transit from Manila to London was only 1 hour and the security had to stop us because we brought in milk. My 2 year old had to walk through the scanner by himself because they will not allow me to carry him which scared the life out of my child, which delayed the other passengers passing the scanner because they had to wait for him to walk through. Then they had to frisk the 2 year old. We paid to ride the golf cart to get to our gate in a hurry. I thought they were free anyway we got there quicker than walking. The only saving grace was the flight back to London the stewardess were attentive. Overall if you are a family with small children this flight may not be the one for you . Air China is just starting they still have a lot to improve on.

✅ Verified Review | From check in to Manila and back a pleasant journey. Crew were polite and very helpful, best food was on the outward journey - not too bad on the return though, plenty of drink if you needed it. Only set back was long queues at Beijing going thru security checks - one open for passport check and about 300+ people waiting to be checked was slow, then long wait next to another passport control, then aggressive staff at security. Air China brilliant in response to e-mail being disabled and asked for assistance at Beijing onward to Heathrow flight, due to such a short time between flights and I would not have made the flight with the long waits at passport/security. Even then just had 20 minutes wait before boarding aircraft, and lucky I had assistance.

✅ Verified Review | London to Auckland via Beijing return with Air China. Don't do it, just don't. You may want a cheap airline, but you don't want this. By the time you are on the plane it is too late, and you will be crying into your porridge. Water being brought around the cabin at irregular intervals was the highlight. Watch out, they will also remove lithium batteries from your check-in baggage, just for fun.

Flew Air China from New York JFK to Tokyo Haneda via Beijing.. I bought the ticket because it was cheap but I honestly would not recommend this airline to anyone. Worst flight experience of my life. The food was mediocre and they waited 7 hours in between meals to feed us which resulted in a lot of complaining among customers because we were starving. The inflight entertainment options are very limited if you do not speak Chinese and there are ads that play every time you watch something. The screen for the movies was very laggy and slow. The service from flight attendants ranged from adequate to borderline rude and their English ability was very lacking so many passengers could not understand the announcements. There was a mixup with the boarding gate because the flight attendant read the wrong gate (E390 doesn't exits vs. E09, the actual gate). There was also a delay which left me and my friend only 40 minutes to go through security in Beijing Airport (which is very disorganized and chaotic). When I arrived in Haneda I learned that they left my luggage along with many others in Beijing because of "luggage problems". The employee I talked to regarding the situation kept asking me the same questions over and over even though I clearly requested that the luggage be sent to my friend's house in Japan. She then proceeded to talk to my friend and ask him the same questions over and over again. They promised the luggage would be delivered the next day but it never came. I called their customer service and they told me they would "call me back in a few minutes" after they searched the system but they never called back and after 30 minutes of waiting I had to call again. When I called again there was no explanation for why they decided not to follow up only a half hearted apology. I eventually received my luggage after 3 days but all in all, this was a terrible experience. Spend the extra money and fly a better airline.