China Airlines

Brisbane to Auckland. China Airlines have recently added this sector and are offering a full service flight at a very reasonable price and flight times are excellent. A340 was spotless on demand IFE was very good meal was pretty good. Crew were very attentive not a full trip probably only 60%.

LHR-TPE return in business - rescheduled return via Frankfurt due to unexplained and unhelpful cancellation of original flight. Outbound crew excellent but food not as good as usual. Seats not lie-flat but fine for resting. Return service noticably poorer and dinner rushed on the basis that it was a night flight. Personally I expect the choice of a full or express service and had the same problem last time I flew this route. Overall a fair and pleasant business product for the price.

LHR-TPE-SYD. Food drink and service were good. Lounge at Taipei not brilliant but good enough. Priority baggage seemed to come off last for all of us that had a connecting flight in Taipei. Return flight arrives in TPE before anything opens and seemingly before any staff arrived - a nightmare working out where to go. Airline staff were very friendly couldn't do enough for you.

Vancouver to Bali back and forth - no PTV on seats and old 747 aircraft. Even if it's 1500$ cheaper then flying other airlines I'll never fly with China airlines again.

Sydney - Taipei - Vienna in Business. Stopped overnight at Sunmoon Lake Taiwan to catch connected Vienna service. Flew CI last year and the service is still good. Qantas lounge in Sydney excellent CI lounge in Taipei ok limited drinks and food. On board service good but they really need to review serving breakfast three hours before arrival in Taipei when the flight arrives at 4.10 am. This could have been done 1.5 hours prior. Would fly again if they keep the fares low and continue to offer the better airbus business class seats on the route that I wish to fly.

Sydney-Taipei-Peking-Taipei-Sydney. I was impressed with service on the ground and onboard. The inflight service didn't have many 'trappings' (eg. no hot-towel before departure) as some airlines do but was sincere with good interaction from flight attendants. Food was very tasty and woolong tea was the great drink to wind up a meal. The downer was the limited leg room on the A330-300 between Sydney and Taipei considering it was a long-haul night flight. The flights between Taipei and Peking were much more pleasant.

LHR-TPE-SYD return in C. Very attractive pricing but 5 hour layover in TPE make for 29-hour trip which is on the long side . Outward trip more than acceptable for the cost. A340 C-class seats are quite comfortable; less so for the A330 TPE-SYD leg. Lounges at LHR and TPE both did the job. Meals drinks and IFE all okay without being stunning - to some degree I suppose you get what you pay for. Return leg was problematic. TPE-LHR flight cancelled (no reason given at SYD) ended up rerouted via Frankfurt with a BA short-haul FRA-LHR leg. Main problem with this was a 20 hour layover in TPE (first flight landed at 0400 and FRA flight departed midnight); with a 4 hour wait in FRA for the final leg this made for a 50 hour trip which is really not good. Layover arrangements in TPE were acceptable in the circumstances : comfortable Novotel for the day with meals transfers organised swiftly and efficiently. However the business class product on TPE-FRA (747-400) is really quite poor - it is at least a decade out of date and looks like it. Meal service roughly equivalent to other sectors flown but seat not really acceptable and IFE laughably poor. Overall would consider again and regard it as very good value for money had all four sectors flown as originally scheduled.

Heathrow-Taipei-Sydney return in Economy. Surprised how good the service was as expectations were low due to low price. Good travelling times. Good food although got a bit fed up with rice and noodles. Staff happy to get drinks. Taipei airport not the best. Didn't open till 6am so had to sit on floor with no food drinks or information for an hour or so. Plane not full on way back so had 2 seats each and lay down.

Heathrow-Taipei-Sydney return in Business class. Check in LHR T4 was excellent and Skyteam lounge is acceptable. Onboard seating (A340-300 and A330-300) just about adequate - it is not lie-flat. Service ok crews friendly and managed as well as they could given their poor command of English. Meals and drinks services rather haphazard with drinks being served only with meals - and in very small glasses wine selection the same on all flights and not very interesting. Food ok with 3 main course selections but the service processes need some refinement. TPE lounge is a rather depressing windowless facility although the showers are welcome - however it was not open when landing back at 0415 on the return leg nor were there staff available to direct transferring passengers to the correct terminal (flight/gate not noted on the information screens). It eventually opened at 0530 but this needs correcting. Note should be made that the LHR-TPE-LHR sectors are very long as CI cannot fly over Chinese airspace - eastbound was over India Thailand Hong Kong then north-east to TPE (about 13 hours) and westbound was over Japan Siberia etc (14.5 hours). One thing that CI must address - the priority baggage tag system does not work and both in SYD and LHR all bags that had transferred in TPE came off last. The main advantage in using CI for this type of journey is cost - keep expectations low and it is ok.

TPE-JFK. Business class price wise. Boeing 747-400 old cabin design inadequate seating (outdated sleeperettes) broken legrest. Food good but little and poorly presented. Nuts and rice crackers as snacks during more than 15 hour flight. inattentive crew. Waited four days for luggage after arrival.