So I flew my first China Eastern segments yesterday, all in economy class, and I was very happy with the experience. The first segment, was a codeshare on the Air France subsidiary Hop ! from the DUS to CDG. The second segment, which was my first true segment on China Eastern, was from Paris to Shanghai (CDG-PVG) on a Boeing 777-300. There was one French cabin attendant on board and she told me that the aircraft was new, which I took to mean fairly new, maybe less than 4 years. I managed to snag seat 70J, which is where the fuselage begins to taper towards the rear and the three-seat lay out on the window side becomes a two-seat layout. 70J affords quite a lot of aisle space. This is one of the rare times that an economy class seat has not hurt my back and I found the comfort and general legroom really more than acceptable.

Meal service began after take off, without a drink from the bar to begin with. It was the lower end of culinary excellence, but it really wasn’t as bad as all that because the catering was from a French company. I had the braised beef with small penne pasta. There was plenty Tsingtao beer and the red wine was perfectly drinkable. During the flight, snacks, sandwiches and drinks were available from the galley. Breakfast consisted of hot Chinese noodles with beef, or omelettes, all pretty good. Service was not particularly friendly, nor was it unfriendly, just normal. Each time I went to the galley I got the snacks and drinks I wanted, but you have to let the FAs pour the drinks. There were no liquors, just beer and wine.

In-flight entertainment was pretty good, against my expectations. There was a good selection of Chinese traditional and pop music, a slightly mediocre and pale classical and light music selection, and many other music options. There was a very good choice of films, including a few I hadn’t got around to seeing yet (for example, Victoria & Abdul). Most interesting was the large Chinese and Asian film selection and, upon recommendation of my Chinese seat mate from Shanghai, I watched the imaginative and fantastic Legend of the Demon Cat (Japan) and the modern comedy Perfect Couple (Hong Kong). For me, these IFE systems provide a chance to see or hear things I normally wouldn’t bother with. I found it hard to sleep on the flight because of the flight times (departure 13h25, arrival 06h25 local).

My third China Eastern segment was the flight from Shanghai to Jeju (PVG-CJU). Going through the international transfer process was a bit time consuming but I eventually made it to the good China Eastern lounge, where I had a shower and some decent food including soup noodles. This flight was on an A330-300, painted in SkyTeam colors, which we boarded at a remote stand. It was full of Chinese holidaymakers going to Jeju. I had seat 73L, right at the back of the aircraft, which was a lot less comfortable than the previous flight. It took ages to make it to the head of of the runway for take off. In-flight service consisted of water bottles only. The rest of the flight time was taken up filling out the landing and customs cards for South Korea. All of these flights were pretty well on time.So my China Eastern ordinary (economy) traveler experience was very positive. I would definitely fly this company again, and it was good to try out the economy class first. It’s always better to start at the bottom and work up!