China Airlines

Feb 26 CI 584 PVG-KHH. Mar 10 CI 503 TPE-PVG. Flew on CI flights at least once every year for my last 36 years and I tried last month again on PVG-KHH and TPE-PVG. Everything was excellent. You find the crew to be sincere and try their very best to help at all times. A333 was used for the outbound flight full dinner was served although it was just a 1.45 hr flight and arrived on time. For my return flight I was on the special livery B744 and I discovered the cabin is pretty new. It is rare to see IFE was offer on flight between China and Taiwan in fact CI is one of the two airlines out of 10+ carriers serving cross strait having PTV on every single seats I am for sure to fly CI again for my next trip to Taiwan and looking forward to try their new B777 business class next time.

Travelled JFK-TPE TPE-ICN TPE-XMN and finally back to NYC. It was a month long vacation & those flights definitely made it more pleasant. The lounge at Jfk was well stocked with food & drinks. Plenty of staff member s to clean after the moving crowd. On board the flight attendants were all smiles. No request was too much for them. 3 meals served from JFK to TPE are delicious and fresh & the drink menu extensive. The lounge at TPE airport is one of the best in my opinion. I recommend China Airlines highly.

SUB-SIN-SUB in Business Class. Aircraft: A330-300 (2-2-2). Check-in at both airports was fast. All departures and arrivals were on time. Seat is comfortable with decent legroom. Food had a better taste on the outbound flight and drinks filled up frequently. Flight Attendants were charming and friendly. Unfortunately I did not use the IFE so could not comment on it. For those who want to enjoy Business Class at affordable price (almost 50% cheaper than its competitor) I recommend you to try it and personally I do not hesitate to fly CI Business Class again in the future.

I have flown for several years on China airlines LA Taipei Shanghai (3-4 times per year) and always flew first class. This time however they informed me that they have introduced the new 777-300's and they have Business Premium. They assured me it is "Better than the old first class". They convinced me so I booked. I am now en-route and have hit my first obstacle in LAX. Even though I booked as high of a class offered on my flight I cannot access the First Class lounge. Quite frankly I've put in over 25 years of the Asian travel and during my lay- overs the First Class lounges are much nicer than the Business class lounges. I am now at the Taipei airport Business Lounge and the food and amenities are spare. I have been told they do not offer bottled water. Sounds like I'm complaining I'm really not. Just disappointed. The fare that I paid was in the same ball park of what I've always paid for their First Class and when I have longer lay overs it's nice to have the amenities (food etc.) especially when your paying first class fare. It's clear that China Airlines can get many more of the Premium Business class seats in the airplane but I think they need to understand what their customers seeking First Class ( and are willing to pay for it) expect. The seating compartments on the plane were fine however the food and service was not like First Class. Unfortunately it looks like my China Airlines days are over and it's on to another airline that has the total first class package.

I have been traveling between Asia and North America for more than a decade more than half those flights have been on China Airlines because of the access to LAX and SFO. This last trip I returned to SFO for nine days before returning to Saigon. Firstly the food service is timely after takeoff but being served a meal suitable for a baby. Two tiny scallops and rice with four green beans The next meal service isn't available for 10.5 hours. Make sure to bring snack food for yourself. Secondly the airline asked me to check my carry on bag at the gate which I did. At gate 9 in SFO the man there took my bag and said you're all set to go. Yep I was but my bag wasn't. Have no idea where it is. All because it was over by a kilo. Doubt I'll be flying China again for a very long time.

CI0004 from Taipei to San Francisco old B747 with narrow leg space I am not tall just 170cm. The screen is terrible small in size and cannot see much on the screen even though I adjusted the light to maximum. The appearance of the crew was nice however the service was below average only serving drinking water for 2 times during the entire 11 hours flight. No more China Airlines for the flight which longer than 4 hours.

FRA-TPE-DPS on 747-400 and 330-300. Boeing cabin refurbished and fine Airbus new aircraft. Leg space sufficient food and IFE not convincing but friendly staff and plenty of drinks refill also alcoholic beverages. TPE airport quite old facilities with insufficient bathrooms. Overall OK for the money spent would do it again.

Shanghai Pudong-Taipei Taoyuan on new B77W the lounge at Pudong is disaster (China Eastern lounge) 3-4-3 layout of economy class cabin is really uncomfortable friendly cabin crew and wonderful IFE hot lunch served for this 1hour 20 minutes journey. Back Taipei Songshan-Shanghai Hongqiao on old A330-300 still clean and we'll maintained again very nice cabin crew and good lunch served wonderful lounge at Songshan airport with plenty of hot food and drinks.

Christchurch to Sydney return on business class. It is a very poor business class offering from this airline. Purchased a promotional fare from their website to try this airline while they operate this route over the summer season. Few days later I was contacted by the airline asking for more money as the fare on the website (which we have seen advertised for at least three weeks) was apparently incorrect. Of course I refused to pay more and after few emails and phone calls we came to a resolution but the whole situation was just badly handled. On the return flight from Sydney check-in agent was outright rude telling us we are not given any lounge access as we paid cheap tickets. In general it was a bad experience from the airline which is trying to break into this route. Never again!

I was flying from Taipei to Toronto with a connection in LAX. The policy is that you must re-check baggage when entering the US and flying out to another destination i.e. Canada. With a 2 hr 45 minute layover in LA we figured we'd have enough time to grab our baggage and re-check into Air Canada. Our flight left over an hour late because China Airlines decided to accept passengers from another flight to make more money. We arrived 45 minutes late in LAX and by the time we got our baggage and ran to the other terminal we were late and they would not let us check- in. We brought this to the attention of China Airlines staff but they put us on another flight to Toronto that was 7 hours later! Gave as $100 each discount on our next China Airlines flight. Staff were unhelpful and the entertainment computers were directly underneath the center seats of the plane so I could only stick one foot through the bottom of the seat at a time. It was the worst experience flying I've had and warn everyone that considers traveling with China Airlines to book with someone else.