Shanghai to Beijing
 

I cant find a good airline that flies from Shanghai to Beijing. China Eastern and Air China both look like garbage. Can anyone reccomend another airline? Thanks!

Four airlines fly between those two cities. Besides Air China and China Eastern, you have Hainan Airlines and Shanghai Airlines. See if those are acceptable. Or you can always take the train.

I had a 747 Air China flight between those cities in F ... I enjoyed the trip. It was great service and they had the funky (but comfy) old seats. I don't think I would've been quite as thrilled in Y but this was fine.

Absolutely nothing wrong with either airline. Fly 'em all the time. No miles on most western FF program for intra-China flights, and you get the privilege of flying cattle class in a truly Chinese environment, but they get you there, pretty cheaply.

Plus, its a short flight. Deal with it.

You get can UA miles on Air China. Not just codeshares any more.

Not sure what the above means but I've flown PEK-SHA a couple of times and it felt no different from a UA mainline fight with the following exceptions:
1) There's food (in a box)
2) Every time I've flown Air China, it has been delayed from 20 minutes to 3 hours.

It's a short flight with lots of frequency from multiple carriers so pretty good situation.

I marginally prefer FM to the others. But, I would not pay a premium to fly one airline over another because there's a decent chance you'll end up on the cheaper one anyway once your flight gets canceled.

Speaking of the cancelations, they used to bother me, but now my outlook is more favorable because I've picked up some useful proactive and reactive strategies over the course of the past several years.

Proactive: Pick flights that are less likely to get canceled (just use your gut and stay away from MU during rush hour, if you can help it).

Reactive: When you get to the check-in counter, get confirmation from the ticket agent that your fight is on time. This might involve them having to call someone else because many agents work for the airports as opposed to the airlines. If not, find out other alternatives that are running on schedule and initiate the rebooking process immediately (this requires standing in several more lines, but only takes 10 minutes or so).

I am in China now on business. Been here 2 weeks. Flying around every now and then. Actually China Eastern is pretty good even in economy. They have a lot of new A319 & A320 planes. Spend the extra 40-50$ and go in First. If the plane has to park on the tarmac instead of a gate (which is most of the time) there is a separate van for first class passengers so you dont have to cram in the standing room only bus.

For the OP, I took Air China between the PVG-PEK. Checkout http://www.elong.net and http://www.yoee.com to book ahead of time. My CA flight was delayed because of "air traffic control" by about 45 minutes.

I can't stand MU. I find Hainan much better.

sha-pek and pvg-pek are totally different animals because the former hosts ~35 flights per day and the latter, ~6. the pvg flights tend to happen (eventually) because most are continuations of flights from syd, lax, sfo, etc. but, sha-pek is much harder to pin down (of those ~35 flights, many never leave the ground) so checking schedules in advance is of little use.

if had to endure several years of bus gates and frequent 5+ hour delays, i think your tune might change. also, next time your in sh, drop me a line and i will bring out my mu fa friends; they are cool. (mind you, i still dislike mu, but they understand style and their gound ops are still better organized than hu.)

My apologies, I neglected to notice that the OP was referring to Hongqiao and not Pudong. That's good to know regarding SHA's cancellations. Just lucky I flew out of PVG I suppose :)

How is Air China? What planes do they fly from PVG-PEK?? How is their First Class product?? Any pictures to it??

Air China was similar to HU IMO. They flew a 737-800 when I did it (you can see the full schedule by logging onto www.elong.net and it will list aircraft type with the flight). Airlines.net may have photos, but the general impression was that it was pretty similar in the seat and meal to domestic F in the United Staters, but better service probably.

737
747
767
777

330 (tmk, most, if not all of these are leased from KA)

i believe one of the 744 flights uses the same equipment as pek-jfk, which is very nice in f/j (food is still wierd, but seat/service pretty damn good).