Originally Posted by
BenA
Fair enough - I'm not a *A guy and am going on general impressions of colleagues who are, not on personal experiences. That does seem to be confirmed by their very poor 2-3 star SkyTrax ratings (2* for food service and IFE, 3* for seating and staff) compared to the other mainland airlines, though - but I freely admit that SkyTrax is nonsense and unreliable.
I mostly wanted to clarify that CI is from Taiwan, not the mainland, so for folks unwilling to transit the PRC for visa or other reasons they may be needlessly avoiding them.
Oh yes, and you are very right that the many - far too many - people probably confuse CI with CA. Also you are right that SkyTrax ratings are total nosense and mostly just random (or bought) "rating."
Personally I find that TPE is one of the best airports to transit. CI lounges at TPE are one of the best SkyTeam lounges, due to ample seating of all types, and the best food of any SkyTeam lounge hands down. In flight on CI food can be very good to almost horrible (rarely inbetween), and the angled lied flat or even more ancient 747 seating is dated, but now CI is adding the A350s on more and more routes taking out the A330s with angled lie flats and 747s with the truly ancient product. So, in flight product lacks consistency, and can be very good to not-so-good. But the airport, ground operations, transit experience, and the lounge are some of the best in SkyTeam. (In terms of in flight product and service, GA probably takes the cake as the best SkyTeam airline, with VN a close second; for both so for long haul and longer regional flights.)