Air China

CA 948 Delhi - Beijing Seat 12 L CA 985 Beijing - San Francisco Seat 82C 13th June. Business Class between Delhi and San Francisco. Some of the worst and oldest aircraft's are being used on this route. Airbus from Delhi to Beijing had very worn out toilets and the toilet bowl did not even flush properly. The 747-400 on the Beijing - San Francisco route was more than 14 years old no 170 deg recline this is an old J class seat with many of the seat reclining and extension systems not working. Recline is partial and at least 2 of the functions on my seat (82 C) were not working. The lower panel on my seat was falling off and lying on the floor. The business class lounge at Beijing is another disaster a dirty smelly shower room with no post use cleaning.

Flight from Sydney to Beijing cancelled and changed to a different day without explanation. On the flight itself the service was cold and abrupt. My biggest complaint about this flight were my uncivilised fellow passengers. One lady cut in front of me in the queue during check in. Later in the flight I produced my phone / tablet (which was in flight mode) to check the time. I now realise I shouldn't have but the guy sitting beside me became aggressive in an animated fashion. I requested a move which the cabin staff to their credit quickly agreed to. Their English was extremely poor. I flew a total of four 8+ hour flights with the airline in the past month (Sydney - Beijing - Frankfurt - Shanghai - Sydney). The food was variable ranging from quite poor to somewhat edible and the Chinese red wine was sour and undrinkable. My main issue was uncivilised fellow travellers - I almost lost count of the amount of times I was pushed / shoved or cut in front of in queues during this experience. In addition when transferring through Shanghai I had to collect my luggage and re-check in mid way - they could not transfer my luggage directly from Frankfurt to Sydney. This was an unpleasant way to travel and I would not recommend the airline. You get what you pay for and if you do chose Air China be prepared for extra irritations and inconveniences.

CA429 Chengdu to Mumbai on 2013-06-02. I did not get any food to eat as they only had fish meals. FA's were rude and did not help to find an alternative meal for me. The beer was warm the toilets were dirty from the start of the flight and in shabby condition. The overhead TV screen showed the same Chinese documentary 3 times and a Chinese film both in Mandarin subtitles. Finally coming in to land in Mumbai a 1 minute clip of Beijing airport was shown over and over again till landing. I will never travel this airline again. China has such fantastic infrastructure and warm and friendly people with great cuisine. This airline does great harm to the fine image of China.

SYD-PEK-GAT flight sold as a single stop. Only after further enquiries (after purchase) did I find that there was a technical stop in Shanghai. 40 minute stop was taken and little to no information was given to passengers. Did we have to clear customs and then come back in? Yes we did. We were not told. It took me about 70 minutes to get back to the gate. After this we sat on the tarmac for a while. Initially the blame was levelled at tardy passengers that meant we lost our place in the queue. Then the weather. This is while other aircraft were taking off and landing. Of course the delay meant we missed our connecting flight. Again information had to be squeezed out of the staff. The layover was at a local hotel. We did not know we were being rescheduled until 5 minutes before being ushered onto the bus. Still no replacement flight had been communicated to us. I am currently awaiting the check in to open for the rescheduled flight. To their credit this morning information has been easier to gather.

HKG to CDG via PEK and I must say I have never experienced such a poor airline. Announcements from FA's (and Captains) were of such poor English I could not make out what they were trying to convey. I recall when dinner was being served the FA asked me whether we would like Chicken or Seafood. I told her "can we have 1 chicken and 1 seafood please". She paused for a second and gave me a confused look and responded "We have Chicken with potato or Seafood with rice"! I had to say it 3 times before she understood. On the long haul flight both times I had no choice on the dinner as by the time the FA came to me there was only one choice of meal left. All the beer was finished before dinner was served. Again like all other reviews mentions no smile or even emotion from any of the crew. The airplane was old. On both long haul flights I found litter in the pockets and the tray table had food stains! The seats were also uncomfortable. No dedicated air-conditioning for each seat.

Our flight left London at 1.30pm at 2.30pm 'lunch' was served at 2.45pm shutters were pulled down and we were told to go to sleep! Unbelievable! The 'food' was disgusting no wonder the traveller behind us had taken their own food. Attitude in all the staff who didn't seem to like their job. We enquired about an upgrade before takeoff and were told it would be at least £1000 its no wonder that no-one was in business class apart from the sleeping staff.

SYD-PEK-SYD in Business Class. Travelling for work all I really want is the cheapest business class seat that I can find for overnight flights to China there are few options reasonably priced. Air China's offering on A330 equipment is an older style seat but is virtually flat and with plenty of space. It was set quite low to the ground so was easy to hop over the person adjacent when going to the toilet. Food below average for business class and AVOD was limited with mostly older films. Didn't really matter too much when I slept most of the 11.5hrs each way. Flight crew were efficient and polite but characterless. Australian captain noticed on the return flight which was reassuring.

Flew LAX-PEK in Business and return PEK-LAX in Economy. Business class hard product on the new 777-300 is top notch. Service was very good and food quite on par with my other usual choices when flying to China including UA OZ and AC. Overall if I was flying business class I would choose Air China again if the time and price was right. My return flight in PEK-LAX was in economy. Again 777-300 hard product (seat) which includes in-seat power plug for your laptop was quite good but the seat pitch was borderline acceptable. The IFE system is good AVOD but lacks enough current Western content. That aside I would not recommend Air China economy to anyone because of the quality of the food. Quite simply it was some of the worst airline food (very low quality Chinese food). Several of the side dishes were inedible.

From Auckland to Tianjin stop over in Hong Kong. With Air China between HKG and Tianjin Returning. Both flights were terrible. HKG to TSN cabin crews had no smile no greetings at all. During the meal service they forgot to provide my meal because the crew were busying chatting. On way back from TSN to HKG new Boeing 737-800 with Sky Interior. The service from male cabin crews seemed to be better than their female colleagues. Overall Air China may have nice planes but they showed no willingness to provide any customer service for their CA103/4.

Frankfurt-Beijing-Frankfurt. Second time on this airline as I do not make the bookings myself. Flight as horrible as last time. Old and filthy cabin tatty seats. Crew very poor in English and everything but service minded. Food quality poor and so is the selection of drinks. No announcements from flight deck. Flights at least both on time.