Ex-PEK, unless you're flying to a *A hub, CA is the only carrier to offer direct flights, which contributes a lot to "best" in my opinion. Flying to, say, MAD, and having the last 3 hours in a terrible Economy seat on Lufthansa or Swiss vs. having a direct flight on CA, I'd obviously chose CA.

CA's new C product is perfectly fine and imho better than most competitors.

http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.c...is-to-beijing/

"At my seat were an extremely comfortable pillow and blanket, possibly the best I’ve had in business class."

"Because of the way the seats are angled, your foot “cubby” is actually between the seats in front of you. While it’s not a huge space, I didn’t find it to be nearly as restrictive as the “throne” seats on Austrian and Brussels, for example."

"Also waiting at the seat were some headphones, which were reasonably good. Not Bose, but not bad either…"

"The contents were about average for what you’d expect for a business class amenity kit."

"Lastly, a cart with pajamas was rolled through the cabin. That’s right, Air China offers pajamas in business class. Now they’re not especially high quality and I had brought my own, but that’s still impressive given that there are very few airlines that offer them in business class."

"The seat was actually really comfortable, and I slept for a couple of hours. For whatever reason I couldn’t sleep more than that, so woke up with just under five hours to go to Beijing.

I headed up to the galley to look at the snack selection, which was nicely displayed."

His conclusion:

"Anyway, on the whole Air China totally exceeded my expectations on the new 777-300ER. The hard product was phenomenal (both seat and entertainment), food was mostly edible, and service was generally friendly. I wouldn’t hesitate to fly them again, and would actually like to try their first class product next time."

My own experience is similar. CA isn't as good as SQ, but I'd rate them equal to most other carriers, and in some points above them. This, plus good award availability and a direct flight (without terrible economy seats on the short haul) make a clear vote for CA Ex-PEK.