Hi guys, having been back from my business trip to CTU from JFK, here's a comparison between Cathay and CE. My itinery was JFK-PVG-CTU

Staff Service: the F/As were surprisingly polite, and surprisingly unhelpful. "May I have another pillow please?" Reply: sorry, only one pillow per customer, bye. "May I have a cup of water?" Reply: food service starts in 2 hours, wait till then please. At least they were polite. Cathay 9; China Eastern 2

Food: the hot food smells bad. The fruits are surprisingly good. The salad they gave me made me had diaherrea for 2 days and almost killed my business presentation (I had to hold it in while presenting a project for 30 minutes.) The cup they use for water and drinks are smaller than kiddy cups at McDonalds. The only diet drink they have is water. Cathay 8; China Eastern 1

Flight Entertainment: multiple screens down the middle aisle, only 4 movies show consecutively. One of the movie was rated R and has extended naked people scenes. I feel sorry for the parents with kids. Cathay 10; China Eastern 1

Seat comfort: now, after flying exclusively with Cathay for so long I forgot how comfortable were the seats the actually falls back. I actually slept well in economy because of it. Also ample leg room and seat width. Cathay 7; China Eastern 8

Ground service: I arrived in PVG at 3:30 a.m. The next flight is 9:00 a.m. I needed to check my luggages out and recheck them in at the terminal. When asked why I needed to do that they told me "I didn't get the ticket that automatically transfer the luggages all the way." Huh? Cathay 10; China Eastern 1

Conclusion: no way I would fly China Eastern again, even with fall back seats.

I've been promoted to Acting Director after this trip, and luckily that means from now on I can buy my own tickets as long as the price isn't too ridiculous. YES!