jplus

January 7th, 2008
Air China (CA)
YVR – PEK
CA992, 11 hours 55 minutes, 8494KM (5278 miles)
Airbus 330 wide-body

Air China, the newest Star Alliance member operates a premium cabin from Vancouver to Beijing, branded as “Capital Pavilion”. I was quite excited to try Air China’s business class service as it was something new from Air Canada, and Beijing Capital airport offers good connections to other parts of the country. The last time I experienced Air China on international routes was almost a decade ago, so I expected to see improved cabin and service.

Airport

The Vancouver International Airport is relatively packed on the Monday morning. Check-in at the dedicated Business Class counter however was efficient with two people in front of me. I was offered a choice of seats, priority tag for checked luggage, elite security sticker, and an invitation to Air China’s contracted lounge, the Plaza Premium lounge.

Airport security asked that laptops to be scanned separately from carry-on, however there was no ridiculous shoes-and-ziplocs carnival. The process took less than three minutes.

At first I wanted to use the Maple Leaf Lounge, however it was packed so the reception sent me to their overflow facility – the same Plaza Premium Air China uses. The Plaza Premium is the contract lounge for Korean Airlines, Oasis Hong Kong, and several others at YVR, it also sells access for CAD$35. I believe this is a PriorityPass location. The lounge is spacious, with nap rooms, computers, and hot food. The food is quite mediocre, consisting of reheated Asian fare, and a salad bar that no one seem to have touched. Alcoholic drinks are only available upon request. The lounge is located right next to a smoking room so it was convenient for me to catch a puff with a friend who works at the airport.

Boarding

After spending an hour so on emails, phone calls, boarding has commenced. The lines were busy and there was no signage for business or status passengers, however the gate agent allowed me to jump the queue.

The front business cabin had a light load, and with the 2-2-2 setup, passengers were spaced out. Towels and a choice of champagne, orange juice, and water were offered along with English and Chinese newspapers.

[To be continued]

jplus

Cabin

The business class was situated in the first two sections of the aircraft, finished in a light-purple scheme, and equipped with 2-2-2 almost-flat Recaro seats. I was placed in the third row in the front. Since the flight had a light load, there were two seats for each passengers. The seats were spacious with a nice pitch. I am not sure of the technical term but the rows were divided in a manner that when a passenger may choose to recline, the seats would move forwards at the same time so the space of the person behind would not be compromised. There were no dividers between seats so privacy and space may be concerns, especially if the neighbouring seat was not vacant. Duvets were handed out after the seatbelt signs were turned off, however they were not packaged or sealed in any way, this could be a potential hygiene problem. Two washrooms were accessible by business class passengers, no premium amenities were found. I did not make use of the IFE system, however available on the individual screens were English and Chinese movies, music, games, and moving map. To be fair, despite the setbacks, the seats were mighty comfortable, and I slept for a good six hours.

Food

Transcript of menu:
I had the Chinese choices for both meals, seasoned by spicy Chinese pickles, and washed down with the Californian red. The meals did not have the exotic, wow factor of say the Obento from UA, nor can they compare to the fancy Chinese delicacies from CX. However the food tasted fresh and homey, in the way that simple food with acceptable execution can satisfy, though not excel in this case. I would say the food was between fair to good. Fresh fruits and chips were offered as snacks.

Service

Three flight attendants were with the front cabin that day, and overall they did well. During meals they were attentive and quick with drink refills, and for the rest of the flight they came around several times to check on the passengers. Interactions were polite, and mostly conducted with a smile.

Conclusion

Air China is trying hard to catch the international premium market, their product is satisfactory however not top-notch. The downside of Air China is corporate decisions on their soft products. The previously mentioned duvet problem, their embarrassing amenity kits, and other important details hold the airlines back from being outstanding among international competitors.

Personally I would not mind flying with them again if there is a schedule or cost advantage, especially now that they are a Star Alliance member offering status miles and elite benefits.

bschaff1

Great report OP. I haven't been on any of their A330s but got to fly on an A340-300 and was underwhelmed with the business class on it. It was a flight from PEK-PVG and the seats were filthy looking and the food was pathetic. Also, I didn't see this in the report, but did your flight deplane onto a bus, I had to take a bus for what seemed like a one mile ride from the terminal to the plane in PEK and if I'm paying to fly business class on one of their top end planes I expect something better. Hopefully they manage to find a way to become a higher quality airline with clean planes and a level of service comparable to other Asian carriers like ANA.

lucky9876coins

Excellent report, thanks!^ Overall sounds like a pretty mediocre product to me, probably not something I'd try unless there weren't another option. As bschaff1 said, let's hope they raise their standards a bit.

jplus

Thanks for the responses.

Yes thanks for the reminder! They had no gates so deplanning was done through buses, though they did have a separate minibus for business passengers which got us to the terminal quicker.

Yes definitely a medicore product, but the silver lining is that Air China can be a good value sometimes, especially for catching connections to other parts of China and perhaps milegage runs.

With the amount of capital available to CA I think it is a matter of time they catch up unless someone is seriously messing around.