Safety record for Air China

Air China not safe? When an Air China flight arrived at BJS on New Years Eve Air China recorded the 46th straight year without any major accidents. More info avaible at http://news.airwise.com/stories/2001/01/978436570.html

Safety should always be the paramount concern of every airline.

I concur

Are we sure about this considering the info is from state media? People used to say the only thing truthful on the People's Daily is the date (even the the weather forecast is not trustworthy). What about during the time when there was only one airline in China - operating under the name of CAAC? Didn't people say that stood for Chinese Airlines Always Crash ...

[This message has been edited by DragonBoy (edited 01-03-2001).]

I'm with you, dragonboy. That Airwise article is surprisingly short in the fact department.

For one, I have no evidence that CAAC crashed or not crashed but I do know that the Taiwanese Airlines are infamous for accidents. As for the State run CAAC, I did hear stories from the few Westerners who were there in the early 80swhere the pilots, who were from the Air Force, were infamous for doing 10,000+ feet decend in 5 seconds deals. These Westerners complained and complained. As for safety record, nobody would know since this is a State ran airline and the news were given by the State run news agency.

But personally, I flew Air China many times, the services is very subpar, but I felt safe on the airline, safer when I flew Chinese Airlines, the Taiwanese Airline, well many people here would know about their safety record.

Also I would like to say that CAAC does not stand for China Airlines Always Crash because even though they are a state ran airline, they were all traditionally really big on saftey issues.
On a trip last year for example they canceled all flights due to "fog", but I didn't see alot of fog and visibility was at least 5-8 miles, a fellow traveler from Thailand said that if one of the Thai airline were to choose, they would have taken off. That being said, I have to say that Air China is very keen on saftely issues.

Al

Al

[This message has been edited by afang (edited 01-04-2001).]

I agree with afang.

Although the services aren't up to the standard but their safety record is considerably well maintained. At least better than China Airlines from Taiwan. Flew with them once, the landing and take off was just fine.

Also, IF there were any MAJOR accidents we'd have known otherwise no matter from Chinese media or not.

Well, just my opinion after all.

it is CAAC= china airline always cancel, NOT crash ;-)

in fact air china IS INDEED the safest airways with complete clean record (used to be on par with QF until the aussie plane skid out of the runway recently). this is well known among the airline industry, not just am uncontested state media propaganda.
-- please not to confuse this with "china airline" the flagship airline of taiwan, they were separated since 1949 ;-). even if you only count from the deregulation to exclude those ex-CAAC cousins (which had a number of crashes) they disowned, i.e. mid-1980s. over 15 years of no err is a very decent record.

And there is a reason for it being safe, it is usually flown by more experienced (and older) pilots who used to fly the top govt officials. they would cancel the flight whenever they have the slightest doubt, to ensure the acronym is 'cancel' instead of 'crashed'

I agree with you pegasus822.
Air China would cancel flights when they have doubts. That's why so many people hate flying them. First, they give you this very "tasteful" free meal, then you have to take care of your own hotel arrangements if you are not a forgeiner, it might change now. I have no clue how good their FF program is since no one uses them here in the States, everyone is using WP miles when flying to PEK.

And also, China Airlines has one of the worst saftey records. Even my friends from Taiwan refuse to fly them, they seem to like Eva Air better, but I don't know about their safety record.
I guess the moral of the story is, Air China's service sucks, but at least people don't die when flying with them.

Al

Yes, even the Chinese President fly with Air China very time when he visit other countries.

I can't imagine that the Chinese government would be to hip to ferrying Jiang Zemin around on UAL. (Talk about face loosing potential.) Also, I believe he flies on Air China planes but not on scheduled Air China flights.

let me share a couple of my experiences

1. i was stuck in beijing due to a typhoon in the destination (HKG) in 1997, we (about 20 people in C & F classes) were bused (with the Y crowd, in an antique bus) to a no star hotel (i mean NO star, called Beiwan, see if you can find it on any map) for the night. as soon as we arrived after the bus nagivated in tho narrow alleys, we decided to leave. we cannot find taxi, so we each tip teh bus driver 10 Yuan to get us to Sheraton Great Wall. When we tried to check in, the sympathetic staff said, "i know the typhhoon in HK, and you are the Dragon Air Crowd, right" the cost of not being able to confirm my seat on KA make uspay for the hotel ourself, and lost 2 hours in a bus detour. in this case all flights were canceled...not CA's fault

2. during the winter last year, every time we board the PEK-HKG flight we found us in a smaller equipment, with no F seat. So a lot of the folks complained. finally we learnt that our premier Chu and president Jiang were visiting "our friends all around the world" and had taken the 747 as their charter flight.....sure they wont travel with us, but we do share the same plane, and they do get the smell we mundane folks leave on the seats

oh...about EVA, it is a great airline, you could almost compare the service with CX/SQ...well take 10% discount...i got the chance to fly their B class when my CX flight from TPE-HKG was canceled due to the pilot strike..and it was great, and they serve Godiva chocolates

p

[This message has been edited by pegasus8228 (edited 01-04-2001).]

[This message has been edited by pegasus8228 (edited 01-04-2001).]