Air China

Vienna to Hong Kong via Beijing with Air China. My experience with Air China started rather badly with a 10 min wait at the single business checkin counter. A330 business class seat was good, lie flat, free seat next to me in a 2-2-2 config. Level of English of cabin crew was very poor on all sectors. Food was good. Transfer at Beijing is not well organised, remote stand "business bus" was filled up with all passengers and no assistance for connections. No prority for business passengers at transfer. Just managed by myself to get my connection (2hrs went by really fast in the queues). A321 in a 2-2 seat layout, standard seats for the 3hr leg to HKG. Return with very unfriendly staff at Checkin. Aircraft changed from Boeing 777 to A321 without prior notification, my reserved window seat, gone. Not recognised and took my Star Alliance Gold status. Bus boarding in HKG, priority boarding in the bus and then filled up with economy passengers, not usefull at all. Used the crowded lounge in Beijing Airport. Boeing 777-300ER to FRA very nice seat and ok food. IFE was ok, but limited English selection. Cabin crew friendliness ok, but no command of English language. Very hard to communicate, no German language skills on flights to Austria/Germany. No transfer information given in Beijing or Frankfurt.

Tokyo to London via Beijing. The Air China Beijing airport staff having me run through the huge airport to find a closed gate. Connection missed in Beijing. No one around to help. Nightmare in Beijing airport. Air China staff are reluctant to help and treating you like you owe them something because you missed your flight because of them. Onboard untertainment is very outdated. Forbidden to use a phone in flight mode during the whole flight. Poor cabin service and food. Arrived in London, the luggage didn't follow. Never again with Air China.

We were booked to fly Air China from Calgary to Ho Chi Minh via Beijing. But then a week later, I discovered one letter was missing from my second name. I don't know how this happened. I called Air China and was told no change are permitted and of course I can't fly if names don't match exactly. The agent was respectful but there was no there was nothing I could do except cancel our flight. This costs me somewhere around $600-700, don't know how much yet since I have to wait 6-8 weeks to be credited. This seems very expensive and will really increase the cost of our trip. I have read the reviews and the comments are what I experienced in the past with China Southern. Now I'm thinking of flying with someone else to avoid the disappointment of flying with Air China even though I know it will cost more.

Our return flight was better than the outbound flight from Munich to Beijing. Inflight entertainment was okay but limited. Meals were nothing special just average. Cabin staff was not very friendly. Flight was delayed but first Information was given by crew after 1 hours waiting time!

Los Angeles to Phuket via Beijing and Bangkok, return on Air China. Do not fly this airline at any cost. The service was rude and indifferent at best unless you were Chinese. Spent over 20 hours in the air on this airline and probably had less than 1 hour of interaction with the staff - again, unless you were Chinese. The service was non-existent and the basic language skills were far below elemenatry. This was easily the worst airline that I have ever been on. Pay more money to fly another airline

I can say that without a doubt myself nor my girlfriend will ever fly Air China ever again. Checking in at Vancouver they made us aware they forgot our middle names on our initial flights, made us sign a waiver form to state that we may have to pay an additional fee because some countries may not allow us entry because of this fault. Now we had 3 flights with them Vancouver to Beijing, Hong Kong to Beijing and Beijing back to Vancouver. In these 3 flights they served us water 4 times, both our monitors were broken for one whole flight and their response was a collective sort of "not understanding you, I'll walk away without doing anything". On one flight my girlfriends headphones were broken, a simple fix you would think, so we buzzed an attendant because they were never doing their job properly - it took over 15 mintues before anyone even bothered to show up, she looked and acted very disgruntled over the fact that someone made her do anything, after telling her that our headset was broken she proceeded to yell "broken" to which a few other guests turned around. On the final flight home we were lucky enough to be given water twice during our 12 hour flight and given two meals (a blessing for this airline). We decided to ask for a beer to follow up our dinner, we were told straight out "no!" and we asked why to which we were given no answer. I asked for a Ginger Ale or Sprite to which we were told "no!" and we said "Water?" to which she didn't say a word, disappeared, placed both cups on my stand and walked away to sit down and ignore customers for 3 more hours. I will never fly Air China ever again.‬

Avoid Air China at all costs. They employ the bait and switch technique when it comes to selling flights. I booked a flight leaving London with a 2-hour changeover in Beijing then to Bangkok. Arrive at Heathrow and surprised to find the flight schedule is changed to leave 3 hours later from London. This had been changed for months with nobody informed, and this no means I miss my connecting flight in Beijing, so now have to wait in transit for 23 hours and catch the Bangkok flight next day. Stuck in Beijing airport, cannot leave the airport as no visa to enter China.

Islamabad to Hangzhou via Beijing with Air China. I was supposed to collect my baggage at Hangzhou Airport according to the staff of Air China in Pakistan and the baggage receipt they gave me. But it was detained by Customs at Beijing (where we changed aircraft) saying it needed customs clearance. We applied for baggage claim at Hangzhou Airport for which they said it would be delivered at your address and now after 34 hours nothing been received. The customs people could have made announcement at Beijing Airport cause we spent 3 hours there but they did just nothing. I have nothing with me to wear for a scheduled meeting tomorrow. I can't do anything because am like a stranger here. And I am an hour drive away from Hangzhou airport.

Never use Air China! The start of our long trip from Helsinki to Sydney via Stockholm and Beijing began with a flight to Stockholm with SAS, very quick and efficient and staff were nice and friendly. That's when our trip went sour. Boarding the Air China flight was chaotic and when we did board the staff were miserable and didn't greet us. This service continued throughout the flight. Once it was time for our meals, the options are either rice with pork or beef or rice with chicken - no good if your either a vegetarian or vegan. After food is served they came to collect the trays and pretty much snatched them from us, no please or thank you's either. Same experience on our connecting flight to Sydney. The flight attendants English is appalling, and you could barely hear their announcements. Seating is awful, but I guess that's why the flights were so cheap. The only positive from this experience was upon checking in at Sydney for our flights back home, we were allocated seats towards the front of the plane with bigger legroom for our flight from Beijing to Stockholm. Apart from that I strongly recommend that you avoid Air China.

I flew Air China round trip from New York to Manila via Beijing return. I arrived at the airport 2.5 hours early for my flight to find 15 people standing at the check in counter because the flight had taken off 3 hours early and none of us were informed. No email, nothing! Their response was "sorry it's not our fault but we will not charge you a penalty for missing the flight". Are you kidding me! What kind of service is this? This is the worst experience I have had with an airline. They could not even tell me when my next flight was going to be. I am now stranded in a foreign country with no hotel and no food because they did not even have the decency to offer that much. Horrible service experience!