Air China

❎ Not Verified | Beijing to San Francisco. Never ever have flown on a worst flight. Flight attendants don’t care. They were constantly just talking and laughing with each other instead of taking care of the passengers. We had constant delays with no explanation of why. I will say that they were very kind and let my friend and I sit together on every flight. But in Beijing, we had a 20-hour layover from Bangkok. Which is fine but they said that our luggage would go straight to San Francisco. And after 3 straight days of traveling we got to SF and it wasn’t there. The guy helping us asked if we had a quick transfer of flights and when we told him we had a 20 hour lay over he was shocked. They had 20-hours to get the bags on the plane. Now I can’t contact anyone because they keep giving me a disconnected number. So I have no idea where our bags are or if they are even coming here.

✅ Trip Verified | Singapore to New York via Beijing in Economy. Total fare was SGD 847, by far the cheapest option at the time of booking. The SIN-PEK flight I had selected was cancelled more than a month before the trip, with an earlier and later flight offered. All flights departed and arrived on time. The legroom and pitch were acceptable, and the adjustable head and calf-rests were much appreciated. The level of cleanliness was generally good, with cleaning of the lavatories by the cabin crew. A decent selection of English content available in the IFE system, though the touchscreen was insensitive and the audio jacks and headphones had to be cajoled into producing even tinny, monaural sound. My pre-ordered vegetarian meal was not loaded onto the SIN-PEK flight due to the schedule change, but the AVML and VLML meals on the other sectors were satisfactory. Each featured a small and rather underwhelming entrée along with a rotating ensemble of sides, including Häagen-Dazs ice cream and Upstate Farms yogurt on the EWR-PEK sector. A selection of soft drinks and Chinese wine and beer were offered during regular drink runs. The onboard service was polite and efficient. One issue was that the layovers were extremely long. However, Air China offers Economy passengers with long layovers free transit lounge access. Though the contracted BCAT lounge was basic, it proved very useful on the return leg. In summary, Air China offered extremely affordable and reasonably comfortable transportation.

✅ Trip Verified | Los Angeles to Singapore with a layover in Beijing. Quick & Dirty. Difficult to book flight. Online booking only. No mobile app. Aircraft dirty cloth seats, dirty monitor. Stolen luggage lock. Lost Luggage. Bad communication. This was by far the most nerve wrecking booking experience I've ever had! I travel frequently and decided to fly Air China despite the bad reviews and of course because of the lower price - won't do that again. I literally had to book the flight 3 times online because, for some reason, my transaction didn't go through. I know this because I called customer service (after being on hold for at least 20 minutes) and was informed. You'd think that would be enough to make me do an about-face. The aircraft had cloth seats with touch monitors that did not respond to touch. It wouldn't be so bad if I weren't on a 12 hour flight! The monitors and tray tables were visibly dirty. But I'm not trippin' because most aircraft are (whether visible or invisible) so I brought my handy-dandy antibacterial wipes. We were a lost luggage victim as well. Luggage didn't even leave LAX! Thank God the luggage arrived in Singapore 24 hours later - our luggage lock wasn't on our luggage. We sat on the tarmac for 1.5 hours before take-off (in Beijing). No explanation given until about an hour of sitting and waiting. Needless to say, we will not be flying Air China again.

✅ Trip Verified | Frankfurt to Jakarta via Beijing. Nightmare flight! For an affordable airline I was not expecting too much. Because of nationality (Brazilian living in Germany) I could not make the online check in. Therefore, I could not mark any option for special meal request, as I am allergic to sea food, I usually like to order the vegetarian meal to be on a safe side. My flights from Frankfurt - Beijing - Jakarta were fine. There was a long layover in Beijing and they offer free transit lounge use. I would like to highlight here that the "propaganda" in the website about the lounge is already misleading. You are limited to a dark and often noisy and crowded area. I ended up preferring to stay in the airport. But my flight back from Beijing to Frankfurt was a complete nightmare. The crew were serving sea food. I called the air attendants and told them that I have a really strong allergy and the smell was already causing an allergic reaction. I faced a completely unprepared and careless crew. They didn't let me to leave my sit and just gave me tissues! I told them several times that I just needed to find a place away from the smell. I had to stay there, barely breathing and feeling sick the whole flight. Additionally, the service is super slow, food is bad and entertainment options are limited. Never will fly again with them!

✅ Trip Verified | Tokyo Haneda to Rome via Beijing. I find this airline within average, with no substantial difference with more expensive carriers. The ticket price is the lowest overall, but service isn't as bad nonetheless. Sometimes on-board personnel have an overworked outlook. Food maybe not top of the class, but not bad either. Economy seats are economy seats, no much to be done about it. If I had to find a couple of minuses, one is the animosity of some passengers, and a second would be the rather limited choice of the IFE movies and TV shows (most are Chinese-only Chinese productions)

✅ Trip Verified | New York to Bangkok via Beijing. I've been traveling for years and this is the 1st and last time I will ever use them. I just got married and my husband and I planned a 2 month honeymoon to Asia. We purchased a round trip from JFK with a layover in Beijing before arriving in Bangkok. The return flight was from Hong Kong with layover in Beijing before landing in Newark, NJ. Our flight in April to Bangkok experienced multiple delays which caused us to miss our layover in Beijing by 5 minutes. We actually had a 75 mins layover in Beijing, but due to the delays, we and almost everyone else on our plane missed our transfers. They couldn't tell their other planes to wait 5-10 mins for everyone to make their flights?? Instead, we saw most of the fliers crowded around the Air China counter. Everyone had to get a temporary visa and herd onto their buses to spend a night in a disgusting, filthy motel because the next flights out were the following day. My husband and I missed our 1st night in Bangkok and of course weren't reimbursed in any way. Throughout the ordeal, we saw all of the passengers at the Air China counters and they, like us, were appalled and furious with their lack of customer service. They just don't care. Now for our flight returning back to NY from Hong Kong on 6/17. We received an email saying that Air China changed our flights so we called Chase Travel. We saw that they changed the planes, times and moved us from Premium Economy to Economy. Why? We paid the extra amount for Economy. Once on the phone with Chase, we selected another flight for 7:30AM that was Premium Economy. We even waited on the phone until we received the email confirmation from Chase for our new flights. So on 6/17 we get to HK airport to check in and they only have my husband's name and not mine. Air China said I was on a 11PM flight and that it was Chase's fault. That was not the case. My husband and I spent hours on the phone with Chase and Air China, and Air China were the ones to cancel my ticket (we have no idea why). Instead of just putting me on the 7:30AM flight, they kept my husband on hold for 50 minutes, then finally told him that they could change his flight for $4000 to be with me for the 11PM. How does that make sense? Why are we being punished for Air China's mistake? They changed our flights then split us up but putting us on different flights that land in different airports. Then they have the audacity to tell him to pay $4000 for him to be on the 11PM when they could've just put me on the 7:30AM which was confirmed. They could have even put us on the next Air China flight after that. My husband ended up purchasing completely new flights with EVA which was $2800 compared to the $2500 round trip with Air China! It's now 7/25 and I've been on the phone with Chase for almost 4.5 hours because the supervisor is trying to get Air China to give us a refund. Rather than admitting their fault and giving us the credit owed, they are trying to contest it. We, the passengers, mean nothing to them.

✅ Trip Verified | Paris CDG to Beijing with Air China. First time flying First Class ever and the experience was just perfect. It was an evening flight and I hadn't been eating all day so the minute I stepped onto the plane I asked if they had cup noodles on board. The flight attendant immediately offered to make me one before the plane took off. So I ended up eating the best convenient noodles I've had. Other than that the service was overall very attentive and prompt. Also I really enjoyed the wine, both red and white. One thing I'd like to note is that the movie selection was quite narrow and not updated frequently (basically the same from the May selection).

✅ Trip Verified | Auckland to London via Beijing with Air China. The air stewardesses were extremely attentive and pleasant. Kept topping up my wine. Offering food. Food was good. Bed on 787-9 had very limited foot room and not overly comfortable. ‘First Class’ lounge and food in Beijing pretty average. Inflight entertainment needs more, better English movies and docos. Stewardess gave me a ‘Fast Track’ priority immigration pass for Heathrow. Brilliant! Straight through.

✅ Trip Verified | This airline treated us very bad. My flight was from Mumbai to Beijing to Montréal. But my Mumbai to Beijing got delayed and I missed my flight to Montréal and then they told us that they will arrange a flight but we have to get our bags from I don't know where which was too far from the gates and we ended up missing the flight. After that when we got our bags they gave us the flight to Vancouver and then to Montréal. Literally I had spent 100$ to upgrade to premium economy and 1025 rupees to get a window seat and they gave us the middle seat and it was so horrible that I would not suggest anyone to travel by it. Instead go buy a more expensive ticket and get a comfortable seat.

✅ Trip Verified | Cheapest business class ticket from London to Hong Kong via Beijing. Even though I normally take direct flights, the price was too good to pass up. Excellent Ground Crew in LHR and HKG. Onboard service was friendly and helpful although I agree that not all the staff can speak adequate English. Food was copious as was alcohol. Entertainment catalogue was adequate for English movies although they could do with more. Sound dampening headphones worked well. Lots of warm towels to keep you refreshed. The lie-flat bed was comfortable and I awoke refreshed after my flight. Would fly with them again, hopefully on their new A350!