Originally Posted by RealHJ

+1. IMO also, CI @ TPE is one of the best if not the best lounge in the SkyTeam network.



Well, most airlines are better than DL.

PEK on the ground and the CA lounges with many months past expiry date food and drink (e.g. the apple juice has become apple-flavored liquor, as it's two years past the best-by date!) and tiny and extremely hot shower is horrible, yes. In the air, CA has some really good crew - light years ahead of DL, who clean the lavatory after every use, keep your spot in line (if you go while someone else is in, they will tell you when it's open, and hold back other pax from using it; that's just one of the many nice things that CA and only CA crew do, even JL doesn't do that), and far better J product on the A330 than DL has on any plane (actual straight ahead facing rectangular seat, with enough room for feet and knees, vs. the mini-coffins that DL has). That being said, yes, on a good day CA - other than on the ground experience - is good. But you could get some not-so-good crew, and on many routes CA uses aircraft with older seating (HNL-PEK thankfully has A330s full time, the best CA J product at this time), and then it can be indeed even worse than DL, absolutely. Also on the flights to PEK the service is usually worse, as I don't know how it is on other routes, but on HNL-PEK the same crew goes back HNL-PEK as came in on PEK-HNL, and they are not even allowed out of the airport (I know as I had some crew remark to me that they really wish they could see what Hawaii is like, but that they are not ever allowed outside of the airport) - they just stay there inside the secure/int'l departures area for the ~7 hours that the plane is on the ground here, and so by the time of the 13+ hour flight back, the crew are understandably tired having worked for 11+h and having gotten less than 6h of rest (as much as one can rest inside an airport). So yes, CA is by no means perfect. But at least food choice wise, it's far ahead of DL and all US-based airlines and service wise also it is often far superior, and product wise also IF you are on the A330...but the frustrating on the ground experience and the inconsistent product really take it down quite a few notches. (Don't even get me started on the time it took me more than four hours to get a proper boarding pass, after wrong having been issued a STBY one in Japan by the ZH check-in desk. The CA lounge agent called like 20 numbers and had to keep yelling on the phone until she almost lost her voice for hours until finally I got a correct BP, just as the flight was starting boarding.)