China Eastern Airlines

✅ Trip Verified | Denpasar Bali to Washington via Beijing. Hellish barely begins to describe my one and (hopefully!) only experience with China Eastern. The problems began right from the check in desk; I knew my bags were going to be overweight, what I didn’t know was that this particular airline doesn’t allow charging an extra fee and checking the bags anyway as with practically any other airline. I was forced to open up my bags and repack them, then use two plastic bags the staff thankfully had the wherewithal to provide me to bring the rest of my baggage aboard the plane. The flight was cramped and uncomfortable, and my seat just so happened to be directly in front of the couple traveling with their bawling infant son and the passenger who tilted his seat practically into my lap. I was tired from already having to be up at 1:30 am to catch this flight and it was impossible to get any amount of sleep on board. Had this been the worst of my experiences I might have ended up rating this airline a 4 or a 5, but the real problems began when I got to Beijing. In order to clear immigration at PEK you have to place your boarding pass, photo ID, and passport into a bag and give it to the officer for inspection. When I got the bag back after leaving the immigration office, there was no passport. Worse still, I couldn’t re-enter the office despite it simply being a flight of stairs away. I tried explaining this to the airport staff, who were incredibly unhelpful and spoke next to no English. They generally kept trying to usher me to the terminal to catch my connecting flight, despite my attempts to explain to them that I need the passport to be able to clear customs in the US in the first place. Either way, it felt as though I was going to be stuck in Beijing. I wasn’t wrong. After being sent all around the airport in a goose chase that lasted almost two hours, airport security finally retrieved my passport, and with an hour and a half to spare, I was finally free to check in to my next flight. Crisis averted, right? Well, as it turns out, the check-in desk for my connecting flight was in Terminal 3, which happens to be a 20-minute shuttle ride from the airport proper. Good thing all of this was explained to me in advance by the China Eastern staff- oh wait, it wasn’t! So naturally, after waiting for 10 minutes for the shuttle and then riding it to Terminal 3, I missed my flight (originally to Chicago) because the check-in desk had just closed three minutes prior. Three minutes! I explained to the staff that my family had driven all the way from Ohio to pick me up in Chicago and that I absolutely needed to catch this flight. But for whatever reason, possibly terrible English comprehension, nothing I said seemed to get through to them. They wouldn’t even let me on the flight to Chicago that left a day later - instead, I was haphazardly tossed onto a flight to Washington DC that I then had to wait another six hours for. So in the end, the backup flight (which I wouldn’t have needed had it not been for the incompetence of the immigration staff) was an inconvenience not only to me but to my family. All in all, flying with China Eastern has quite possibly been the most infuriating experience of my life. Trying to find anything positive to say about my experience is nigh impossible, and I would never in good conscience recommend this airline to anyone.

Not Verified | I flew with China Eastern Airline Sydney to Los Angeles via Shanghai. I had a 2 hour layover in Shanghai and had 2 hours to get on my connecting flight to LAX. However, when I arrived in Shanghai, my bags that were supposed to be on my next flight were at Baggage Claim. I was then redirected to the ticket counter and told that I could not get on my flight to LAX. They then told me that the flight was cancelled, but I later found out it took off for LAX at the scheduled time of 8:57PM. The employees of this airline talked amongst themselves and were laughing, not willing to help me. They told me that the next flight to LAX would be at 1PM the next day. I was stuck in Shanghai for the night. I was very disappointed with their services. I was there on time with a connecting flight, yet they refused to let me on. I had enough time to get on that connecting flight. I do not recommend this airline at all. So unorganised and such a waste of money and time.

✅ Trip Verified | Chicago to Delhi via Shanghai. Prior to flying I read comments about China Easter and thought man this isnt good! Well, there is a reason why people are so upset with the service and quality of this Airline. Service in plane was horrible, I asked for bread they responded "no, may be next time" asked for wine "finish, no more. May be next time". I'm pretty sure there will be no next time. Pay extra fee bucks and fly with a reputed airlines especially for the fact that flights are so long. Ground crews were not helpful and everything was very unorganized.

✅ Trip Verified | Beijing to Yinchuan. Heard mixed reviews of China Eastern Airlines but was pleasantly surprised. Comfortable seats with ample legroom. Plane was new and looked brilliant in the silver SkyTeam livery. Food was decent although I noticed that they don't offer a drink selection and only give passengers a bottle of water. In terms of IFE, you can't expect much when flying within China except a movie or show being shown on the overhead monitors. I was asleep for most of the flight and was pleased with how smooth the ride was. All in all, a good experience.

✅ Trip Verified | Hong Kong to Shanghai. I was scheduled to fly 2 days after Typhoon Mangkhut. Although both their English & Chinese website has very poor announcement on the flight status whereby I have to call to their customer service center China to check it out myself but to be honest, it isn't that bad after all. I was able to switch to an earlier flight without paying for anything at the check in counter and the flight to Shanghai was smooth. Very decent amount of legroom space (coming from someone who takes budget airline quite often) however there's no in-flight entertainment which is fine since it's only a 2 hour flight. The food was OK, well you pay what you get for. Everything was alright, my luggage did not went missing nor was it damaged either. Overall, it was a decent flight and for the price that I paid for it was worth the bucks.

✅ Trip Verified | Ho Chi Minh City to Kunming . I typed in the name correctly in their corresponding boxes and even on the ticket it shows the correct name but I got rejected at the ticket counter anyways because they claimed that in their data system the order of the name does not match the order on the passport. They basically said it doesn't matter if it's correct on the booking ticket because it's not correct in their data. This might be the scam from the airline or the agent (at that airport). How am I supposed to know what's going on with their system and what order they go by and how do I have control over that? Not sure what order they go with and if they keep in mind that half of the world has the order of the name as First - middle - Last and the other half of the world goes by the order of Last, Middle, First. They also did not allow name change (for a fee) and forced us to buy a new ticket. It is a cheap airline but the cost in the end was double the amount. The airline also refused to refund the original ticket. I will just avoid this airline for good!

✅ Trip Verified | Shanghai to New York. Where to start with this airline. If I could rate a 0 or even negative I would. From the customer service at the check in desk to the actual flight. This is hands down the worst airline I’ve ever flown with. Not once did I feel safe on any of the 3 flights I took with them. The food is terrible, the service is ghastly, the temperature is freezing, the inflight entertainment is boring, and the seats are tiny and I’m 5 foot. If you lose something on these flights, trust me you’ve lost it for life. Even their customer service is after the fact is horrible. Trust me when I say avoid at all costs.

✅ Trip Verified | My flight from Shanghai Hongqiao to Seoul Gimpo was the worst flying experience I have ever had: I was lied to and forced to change to a flight leaving from and landing in different airports with no help or compensation. I was denied boarding at the gate, after having successfully checked in and passed security and immigration, by staff who told me that “the Korean government doesn’t like Russian nationals to fly from SHA to GMP”. I discovered this was a complete lie, as confirmed by Pudong Airport Immigration and Seoul Incheon Airport Immigration. In reality, staff at Pudong told me the China Eastern flight was likely overbooked, and I was lied to so I wouldn’t complain. I was forced to change to a flight leaving from a different airport (Shanghai Pudong), 4 hours later, and given no help in transiting to that airport (2 hour transit in rush hour). Staff were rude and said: “Take the subway if taxi is too expensive for you.” I was made to land in Incheon instead of Gimpo, adding two hours to my final destination. Every single airport official I have spoken to was shocked by how China Eastern would lie to me, and provide such terrible treatment of their customers to cover for their own mistakes. I left official complaints in both English and Chinese. Never heard back. Impossible to get through to an actual human being.

✅ Trip Verified | San Francisco to Guangzhou via Shanghai. I was expecting to pass a really bad moment but it wasn't really bad at all, they were in-flight Wi-fi, good meals and all my luggage were at Guangzhou when i arrived. The only thing is that we got a 2h delay on Shanghai departure (layover) but it seems quite normal in China. Je m'attendais à une catastrophe à la lecture des reviews sur differents sites... Mais au final quasiment tout s'est bien passé, il y'a le wi-fi dans l'avion, la nourriture était trés bonne et enfin tout mes bagages sont arrivés a guangzhou sans problémes. Seul petit soucis, un retard de 2h au départ de shanghai (correspondance) mais cela est monnaie courante en chine.

✅ Trip Verified | The aircraft from Delhi to Shanghai was delayed for more than 3 hours. There are many passengers who connects through Shanghai, thus, the connecting passengers are very anxious to say the least as they are likely to miss the connections. The luggage allowance on this airline is only 20kg, much less than the competitors which is 30 KG. They will charge you $25 for each extra kilogram. On the way to Pu Dong airport, there is no boarding bridge, thus, you have to take the shuttle bus to the terminal.