plunet

I would suggest some patience is needed for refunds.

I cannot imagine that AirChina (or other Chinese airlines) staffing are back to full strength yet, a good proportion of their employees are probably stuck in their family hometowns from Chinese New Year in parts of the country with travel restrictions imposed upon them. Moving around in China is quite troublesome and restrictions are constantly changing and vary from area to area.

Even in "normal" circumstances most airlines would typically state it would be between a week and a month to sort a refund. Refunds if not fully automated are almost always handled by a back office team within the airline that is not customer facing. Some members of the forum have reported that refunds have arrived so AirChina are processing them, so I suggest it would be useful to cut them a bit of slack, and avoid calling the airline and clogging up the call centre when other passengers need help and assistance. I am also waiting a refund from a Chinese airline so I can submit an insurance claim for the net amount of my costs to curtail a trip to China but I am not chasing them for updates yet.

It's not the fault the AirChina and other Chinese airlines are in this situation which is quite unprecedented, and I don't think anyone can reasonably expect customer service levels to be perfect based upon the disruption being inflicted upon their businesses at the moment.