Juneyao Airlines Business Class Shanghai (PVG) to Bangkok (BKK) (text only)
I bought this for an insanely cheap price (USD247 one way) but other than a couple of video reports and one or two mentions here on FT there's not a lot of information out there on Juneyao.
Overall I was pretty impressed.
Some points to note:
- booking is not the easiest but is achievable via the website using a foreign credit card. You need to register.
- the ticket receipt was in Chinese, which turned out handy for immigration on my inbound to China (TWOV)
- my email to customer service was answered promptly within a few hours, but only to confirm that vegetarian could not be ordered, and seat selection was not possible. The reason for no special meal was that it was a 'non meal' flight (although I knew from the video reports that it was a refreshment service)
- check-in at PVG was via a dedicated desk, no queues. The cabin was wide open two hours prior to departure and I could select anywhere in row one or two. Row 1 is the place to be with plenty of legroom. Row two is pretty cramped with a stated 38 inch pitch (if that, it might have been around 36 inches).
- Air China's lounge is used
- we had a gate, which is fairly unusual by the sound of things. Because of this priority boarding worked well
- cabin was 5 from 8 occupied by paying pax. There was one relief pilot (next to me) and two upgrades in row two (the plane was packed to the rafters).
- pre-departure water or OJ plus good quality hot towels, orders were also taken for post-departure drinks. We were shown a fairly extensive drinks menu that included lots of soft drinks, half a dozen types of tea, americano coffee, and beer + red/white wine
- the same book as the drinks menu also contained system-wide menus. While not applicable to our 'snack' flight, I'm guessing they would use the same book to show pax the choices available on meal flights.
- after take off the cabin was secured, giving us a private toilet for the 8 pax. The curtain was not opened by pax from economy.
- the snack was actually pretty good! A small bowl of five different types of fruit (melon, apple, pineapple included), a warm bread roll ('artisan', good quality, and fresh) and Anchor butter (New Zealand), and a reasonably tasty cheesecake (two-tiered, caramel and chocolate). Meals were presented with table cloths and metal cuttlery
- after the meal there were more hot towels and bottles of Evian were distributed (yes, Evian!)
- a request for coffee to be given prior to arrival was understood and acknowledged with a '40 minutes before landing'.
- I was given English newspapers and the lights were dimmed for those wanting to snooze.
- at the appropriate time my coffee was brought (and it was pretty good - strong and robust) and a second cup was made on request.
- landing forms were also distributed but no express passes for BKK (the queues were about 20 minutes on arrival at 1230am)
- we had a gate at BKK
For the price, I thought this was excellent value and would recommend them. The only downside was no IFE. There's also potential for a bus gate at either end, and with bus gates there may not be priority boarding for biz class as they wait for all pax to arrive before the dedicated bus leaves for the aircraft.