Air China

Customer Reviews

3 star Skytrax Rating
Food & Beverages 12345
Inflight Entertainment 12345
Seat Comfort 12345
Staff Service 12345
Value for Money 12345
Customer rating from 776 reviews
4/10
3 star Skytrax Rating
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1/10

"cancelled 7 days before my schedule"

(Japan)

Trip Verified | I booked my tickets from Expedia. The airline rescheduled my itinerary with a 32-hour layover in Chengdu. I paid the cancellation fee and rebooked the flight again. Again the connecting flight from Shanghai to Chengdu was cancelled 7 days before my schedule. I had to cancel the booking again and wait for the refund. On the other hand, now I booked another flight with a higher ticket fee which is about double.
Type Of TravellerSolo Leisure
Seat TypeEconomy Class
RouteOsaka to Kathmandu via Shanghai / Chengdu
Date FlownJanuary 2024
Value For Money 12345
no
8/10

"went very well because it wasn't full"

(Italy)

Trip Verified | Returned to travel with Air China, quick boarding at the gate, flight went very well because it wasn't full, rows of seats close together all at my disposal, (the single one is a bit narrow for XL sizes) food was normal, even good compared to other more famous airlines. Decent entertainment, several films in Italian, super crew, they came with water throughout the flight and always available, very poor offer of in-flight snacks, chocolate-covered wafers and little else. Absolute savings but the cost of the ticket makes up for it all. I will gladly return to fly with them for the price, quality and time to get to Japan. Ritornato a viaggiare con Air China, imbarco veloce al gate,volo viaggiato benissimo perchè non era al completo,fila dei sedili vicini tutti a mia disposizione, (il singolo e un po strettino per taglie xl ) cibo nella norma, anche buono se raffrontato a altre compagnie più blasonate.....intrattenimento decente , diversi film in lingua Italiana (Eva ne aveva un paio solo :-( ) equipaggio super , passavano sempre con acqua durante tutto il volo e sempre disponibili , offerta di snack in volo molto povera, wafer ricoperti di cioccolata e poco altro.... ( al risparmio assoluto ma il costo del biglietto ripaga il tutto , me li sono portati da casa gli snack) . ritorno volentieri a volare con loro per il prezzo, la qualità e il tempo per arrivare in Giappone
AircraftA350-900
Type Of TravellerSolo Leisure
Seat TypeEconomy Class
RouteMilan to Nagoya via Beijing
Date FlownDecember 2023
Seat Comfort 12345
Cabin Staff Service 12345
Food & Beverages 12345
Inflight Entertainment 12345
Ground Service 12345
Wifi & Connectivity 12345
Value For Money 12345
yes
1/10

2left with no clothes for two days"

(United Kingdom)

Trip Verified | I was left with no clothes for two days in a business trip with Air China from London to Seoul. Air China is a hugely unreliable low class airline that does have the responsibility to get your money and has no responsibility to compensate you for your lost baggage. Online there is no clear automatic process to get compensated for their mistake to lose your baggage. In the three emails that they have online, if you send an email with your request, all of them respond back that we are not responsible for this loss and/or they provide a phone number which is Chinese and you cannot call from the UK. My baggage got a tag in London that will be transferred to Seoul by Air China. The only responsible party for this loss is Air China and no one else.
Type Of TravellerBusiness
Seat TypeEconomy Class
RouteLondon to Seoul via Beijing
Date FlownNovember 2023
Seat Comfort 12345
Cabin Staff Service 12345
Food & Beverages 12345
Inflight Entertainment 12345
Ground Service 12345
Value For Money 12345
no
1/10

"Never flying them again"

(Japan)

Not Verified | First they cancelled my return flight then asked if I wanted a refund or would be able to fly the next day, which I chose. Unfortunately they forgot to rebook the Shanghai-Tokyo leg the following day. I was able to sort this out on the telephone relatively easily but pretty stressful at the time. In flight service was barebones. Sure they served us food which was bland and didn't taste at all fresh. Warm cans of beer too. Cabin attendants seemed irritated at having to do their job. The inflight entertainment didn't work and there was no interest in finding a fix. There was no information given to us explaining the convoluted transit procedure at Pudong. I was travelling with my daughter at the time yet our return seats weren't together. During the return leg Pudong-Narita, one of my suitcases didn't show up so I had to wait 2 days for it to be delivered. Luggage claim at Narita was a little overrun as 6 other people on the same flight also had missing luggage. Never flying them again.
AircraftA300-200
Type Of TravellerFamily Leisure
Seat TypeEconomy Class
RouteTokyo Narita to London Gatwick via Shanghai Pudong
Date FlownNovember 2023
Seat Comfort 12345
Cabin Staff Service 12345
Food & Beverages 12345
Inflight Entertainment 12345
Ground Service 12345
Wifi & Connectivity 12345
Value For Money 12345
no
2/10

"Last time I fly with them"

(United Kingdom)

Trip Verified | Be aware, Air China proposes several flight times with different aircrafts. But you will find that they cancel some of them 3-4 weeks before the departure date. And you end up moved onto bad flights with bad timings or aircrafts that you didn't want to book in the first place! On both ways I was supposed to fly with an A350-900 where they advertise free internet wifi (you won't get it on any other aircraft). And I ended up with both flights cancelled. Instead I had to travel to Frankfurt to get a Boeing 747-8 with a very old setup (had to get an extra day off to get this flight). And I got a Boeing 777-300ER on the way back with an even older system and a touch screen which wasn't working (had to use the joystick on the side of the armrest during the whole flight). Then, when you call them, they are simply unhelpful and try to force you to get their solution or simply give up on what you were expecting. Also, I have never seen an airline with such mediocre English speaking staff! When talking to customer support or travelling on a UK to Asia flight, you would expect people to speak a decent English. But that wasn't the case and 9 person out of 10 needed a translation tool to communicate. Crazy! Finally my connection flight in Beijing was just 1h40 after landing. Unfortunately we arrived 1h late (all our 4 Air China flights took off 40min-1h late!). Once at the airport I would have expected ground staff to guide us to reach the other flight/gate as quickly as possible. Instead they gave us a sticker when exiting the plane to show the security/checkpoint people we were late for our flight. But we still had to run and navigate in this massive Beijing airport on our own! After a long sprint and a lot of stress we managed to catch our flight, only to realise they were waiting for another Domestic flight which was even more late! We ended up waiting another 40min inside the plane before taking off. If they told us, we would have avoided us a lot of stress and pain. Last time I fly with them.
AircraftBoeing 777-300ER
Type Of TravellerCouple Leisure
Seat TypeEconomy Class
RouteBangkok to London Heathrow via Beijing
Date FlownNovember 2023
Seat Comfort 12345
Cabin Staff Service 12345
Food & Beverages 12345
Inflight Entertainment 12345
Ground Service 12345
Wifi & Connectivity 12345
Value For Money 12345
no
7/10

"find the way to fulfill my request"

(Austria)

Trip Verified | Unfortunately days before my flight I had some serious health issues and I wasn’t able take the flight to Hong Kong. I contact with the European customer service by email to reschedule my flight but they rejected my request. However two days later my friend from Hong Kong called the Air China customer service Chinese number for reschedule my flight if it’s still possible. The Chinese customer service was amazing helpful and patient they speak great English and finally they find the way to fulfill my request.
Type Of TravellerSolo Leisure
Seat TypeEconomy Class
RouteVienna to Hong Kong via Beijing
Date FlownOctober 2023
Value For Money 12345
yes
9/10

"legroom amazing"

(Germany)

Trip Verified | The check-in in Frankfurt was done mostly by Lufthansa staff and they were not really friendly. There was also a Chinese man from Air China who waived me to get to him and then scolded me for not queuing up - he meant the people behind me. The airplane was supposed to be a Boeing 747, but the aircraft got switched. I did not select a seat before, so I was very happy to get a seat in a front row. The seat was okay, legroom amazing. In-flight entertainment was okay, they should have more subtitles available. I was curious about some Chinese movies, but they did not offer any English/German subtitles. Also the User Interface was a bit counter-intuitive. Food was good, drink service excellent. I drink a lot and normally I need to get up and get more water, but we were offered drinks probably every 45 minutes or less. After dinner, they dimmed the light and I could sleep pretty well. From Beijing to Hong Kong I did not use the inflight-entertainment, as I slept or read a book. Flights were on-time.
AircraftBoeing 777 and A320
Type Of TravellerSolo Leisure
Seat TypeEconomy Class
RouteFrankfurt to Hong Kong via Beijing
Date FlownOctober 2023
Seat Comfort 12345
Cabin Staff Service 12345
Food & Beverages 12345
Inflight Entertainment 12345
Ground Service 12345
Value For Money 12345
yes
1/10

"didn’t complete part of my previous journey"

(Netherlands)

Trip Verified | On August 23rd, 2023, I was flying from Amsterdam to Frankfurt on flight LH993, then Frankfurt to Beijing on flight CA932. Then, I was supposed to continue my journey to Shanghai. However, I could not make it to the scheduled flight since I needed to fill in very detail health and arrival forms (which could have already been provided during the flight to save time for people with connecting flight), performed covid test, went through long immigration line, transferred to other terminal, and went through another security lane all within 1 hour 15 minutes after my arrival in Beijing International Airport. I was begging a lot of people in front of me if I could cut lines since my flight was already boarding. Unfortunately, after all those struggles, I still could not make it to my connecting flight to Shanghai. After talking to the security, I was directed to go to the Air China ticket counter. From there, I was told by Air China office lady that I can either get off at Beijing (my luggage is still there at the time) or reschedule my flight to Shanghai. I told the employee: "if I can get out in Beijing then it is okay; I don’t have to go to Shanghai". Never have I ever told that my return ticket would be blocked if I didn’t complete my departure to Shanghai. I was also not told if I needed to re-book my return ticket. I even received an approval stamps from the Air China staff on my boarding pass indicating that I could exit at Beijing. Therefore, I thought everything was fine and I was travelling through other cities with separate trains and airplanes to other cities in between Beijing to Shanghai. The disaster occurred on September 11th, 2023, at 11:35 am when I was supposed to fly back home with Air China from Shanghai all the way to Schiphol Amsterdam Airport with flight CA935 & LH1002. I was not able to check-in and the Air China office lady refused to print out my boarding pass. After quite some time, they came back to me and told me that I was at fault since I didn’t complete part of my previous journey from Beijing to Shanghai 3 weeks prior. Therefore, my return ticket is blocked. The solution from Air China staff was to rebook my ticket as buying new ticket where I had to pay 1300 EURO to get on this flight. So they proposed to me to pay twice the ticket price that I already paid. And it is the price for a one-way ticket, which is insane. I have attempted to address this issue by going in-circles and explaining to the customer service at the ticket office, the supervisor of Air China on duty and the airport manager. However, the responses I received were below standard and I feel that my concerns were not adequately addressed.
Type Of TravellerSolo Leisure
Seat TypeEconomy Class
RouteFrankfurt to Shanghai via Beijing
Date FlownSeptember 2023
Seat Comfort 12345
Cabin Staff Service 12345
Food & Beverages 12345
Inflight Entertainment 12345
Ground Service 12345
Wifi & Connectivity 12345
Value For Money 12345
no
10/10

"Food selection was great"

(Sri Lanka)

Not Verified | I really liked flying with Air China. They were very professional and service was excellent. Landed ahead of time which was a plus: Food selection was great. The seats were spacious and the flight attendants were courteous
Type Of TravellerSolo Leisure
Seat TypeEconomy Class
RouteColombo to Chengdu
Date FlownAugust 2023
Seat Comfort 12345
Cabin Staff Service 12345
Food & Beverages 12345
Inflight Entertainment 12345
Ground Service 12345
Value For Money 12345
yes
2/10

"Absolutely a nightmare"

(China)

Trip Verified | Absolutely a nightmare taking the transit at PEK flying Air China, especially if you have purchased any liquid duty free items. The gate information is very confusing and everyine has to go through security check again in the normal security lines. No liquid more than 100ml is allowed, regardless of your duty free seal. The Airport forwarder refuses sending wine/spirits and both the Airline and Airport staff can not careless of your problem. My colleague and I spent one hour and extra money to pack/ship the duty free goods we purchased, barely make it to the gate which is very far at last minute. CA and PEK no more!
AircraftBoeing 789 / A350-900
Type Of TravellerBusiness
Seat TypeEconomy Class
RouteMadrid to Guangzhou via Beijing
Date FlownSeptember 2023
Seat Comfort 12345
Cabin Staff Service 12345
Food & Beverages 12345
Inflight Entertainment 12345
Ground Service 12345
Wifi & Connectivity 12345
Value For Money 12345
no