Air China

Air China is possibly the worst airline. Our initial flight from New York to Tokyo went pretty smoothly, apart from the transfer security at Beijing Airport. Our return flight was awful. The first leg from Tokyo to Beijing, a flight attendant decided she didn't like me, sternly telling me no when I tried to tell her I didn't need the China customs ticket, and then passed me over for headphones among other rude behavior. This flight from Beijing to New York seemed to be off to a much better start. I had paid for upgraded seating and was excited to not have to sit in the back of the plane and be somewhere a little quieter, less turbulent, and easier to exit from, since I had to quickly exit the airport and make it home at a reasonable hour for work the next morning. While the plane rolled away for take off, a flight attendant asked us to move to the very last seats in the plane - row 62 by the tail and next to the bathrooms. The reasoning was that seat next to us had been double booked, so they upgraded that passenger to the upper deck. The new passenger in that seat was a girl of about 6 years old. The mother stood by because she had bought the three tickets spread all over the plane, but they wanted to sit together. So naturally we were asked to move. Instead of also offering us an upgrade, I got worse seats than the ones I had been assigned when I originally bought the ticket. They would not help with the refund procedure and ignored me. I spend 12 hours sleepless through turbulence (the tail end is bad, with not just shaking, but sea-like waving back and forth) children running down the aisles screaming, children crying due to turbulence, people lined up leaning on the backs of our seats for the bathroom. The bathroom constantly in use (I have never seen the cabin washrooms so consistently occupied or so disgusting), and flight attendants yelling at other passengers who were out of their seats when they were asked not to be. I've never heard a flight attendant actually "shout" at passengers before. They were unapologetic about making us move, although the mom did thank us, and I made zero fuss other than mentioning I paid extra for those seats and asking what I should do. I fly a lot and never experienced anything like this. I don't have high standards and I know what true economy is - the plane was nice, new and included more amenities than expected, but the service was very poor and the passengers were downright vile on this flight. We weren't allowed to power phones on ever which is unusual and cut back on what I could do to pass the time, since I loaded my phone with entertainment.    ⚑ Air China Ranking

Decent service on this 2hr international flight. Aircraft was late departing but clearly communicated by ground staff. Inflight leg room was ample for a journey of this length and meal / drinks service was decent. Crew were friendly and tried their best at English. Only let-down was no in-flight entertainment.

I am flying many times with Air China but this time was one of the worst. In Frankfurt there are only 4 Check in counters for Economy Class and we had to wait very long. The staff onboard doesn't speak English fluently so we didn't understand it good. The food onboard was okay, for vegetarian meals we needed to book 24 hours earlier. The Inflight Entertainment was terrible. There were nearly all movies in Chinese and no German ones. When we arrived at Chengdu the imortant information was in English too but some information was just in Chinese and the ground service couldn't help us. Overall the flight was good but it could be better for inflight entertainment and the ground Service in China.

Good: Cheap flights. Much cheaper for the dates we wanted. Bad: When I tried to confirm my tickets online the website produced an error that said "you're tickets have already been cancelled". When I arrived at Heathrow they were fine. The bags took quite a while to retrieve from baggage reclaim in Heathrow. They didn't tell us about any delay. Pretty dated planes, pretty bad food, cabin crew fairly average. Can't use your iPhone in flight at all (even in airplane mode). One of our flights was delayed by a few hours (which was only displayed at the gate).

My first flight was delayed from Shanghai to Beijing, where I was switching planes to Houston, all booked with Air China. They resold an entire group of tickets for the second flight, assuming we would not arrive on time. When our group of 15 Americans did arrive on time, they refused to allow us on the plane and the "manager" continued to yell at us when we asked her why we all weren't allowed to board. They never apologized and sold us tickets that belonged to the people flying to Houston the next day, so the same thing happened to them. I have lived in China for 2 years and have never been treated so horribly by Chinese workers. I have flown from the US to China using Air China many times and that has been fine. I will pay double to never use their services again.

I have been flying on this route for over 10 years. Ground service from HKG airport for HKG to TSN leg has been always pleasant. Inflight experience has always been a joke. The seats and tray tables are not well maintained. Food for this leg is normally OK as it is prepared in HKG. The fellow passengers are loud and vulgar. The service from the crew is not much better. Do not expect any service from the crew. TSN to HKG leg is much worse than flying from HKG. Ground service was rude and the food has been absolutely inedible. The service is basically none. The reason why I always fly this route is because comfortable transit in HKG and I enjoy the service from CX and ANZ.

Late departure due to the usual congestion in Chinese airspace. New aircraft, comfortable. Efficient and friendly crew.

Took a flight from Beijing to Hong Kong a couple of days ago as part of my journey back to New Zealand from China. The flight was delayed for 3 hours due to air traffic control - apparently this means that some important Chinese official is flying in or out of Beijing so all commercial flights are suspended. Was told that this happens quite often. No new boarding time was given so we had to sit by the gate and wait. I went to the lounge and almost missed the flight as no boarding announcements were made. Due to the delay I missed my connecting flight to Auckland so had to spend the night in Hong Kong. Air China staff told me to do the rebooking myself which I did. They gave me an hotel only till noon the following day though my flight was leaving at 7pm. If I wanted to eat I had to come back to the airport for breakfast and lunch as Air China would not pay for the food at the hotel. They would not give me back my luggage so had to buy a shirt, socks and underwear. Of course no apologies, no help and no compensation all the way through this experience. My suggestion- if you can, avoid Air China at all costs!

Had to choose between an 11-hour train ride for 200 dollars, or an 2.5 hrs flight for 300 dollars. Chose the latter and it was fine. Check-in in Guilin was a breeze and the security too. Lots of flights delayed but ours was punctual. English skills of crew okay, food not. No information from cockpit, but the A321 had a screen showing the route. Punctual landing in Beijing, but luggage delivery ridiculously slow. Not the airline's fault. Would fly again.

I was impressed they use new aircraft to fly US route, even the flight from Beijing to Hong Kong with new A321. LAX-PEK the flight attendants were nice. The seat was really good, I think around 31'to 32'. The beverage and food was okay, not big enough for me. The price was a great deal, I got it at around USD$890 for round trip LAX-HKG (via PEK), and I got it 20 days before the departure. PEK-HKG flight was not full, and slept over other seats next to me. The weather of Hong Kong was bad then we landed at Nanning Airport in Mainland China, we stay at the airplane for 3 hours and no one knows when we will leave even the flight attendants.