Your best and worst experience on AIR CHINA!!!!!
 

I'm flying this airline in the near future and have read just about nothing but horrible reviews! Oh, if I were taking the flight from NY, chances are I'd be on a new 747-400 cabin and that would be great, but I'm going out of San Francisco and it ain't lookin' good. In the beginning, I thought tourist class was OK, but quickly learned that was a crap shoot at best! Felt like I might end up riding with live chickens in my lap! Business sounded better, but read lots of bad reviews for that. What I didn't read was much at all about first class, so I surmised it wasn't too bad but probably nothing great either.

I'd love to read more horror stories if that's what you have, but I'd also like to feel encouraged by some GOOD stories!

Thanks in advance.

betsy

I'm not sure what you have heard... but they have improved over the years... The last time I flown a China-based airline was in August was with China Eastern and the last time I flown Air China was in 1998. All are in cattle class.

I don't have any good stories but maybe a list of what to expect with chinese Airlines might be more useful -
(1) Some FAs cannot speak proper English, and they don't smile.
(2) There is no entertainment except some funny cartoon. Hence, bring a book or your own CD/DVD player or any other entertainment
(3) Food wise is actually okay out of their stations that are NOT in China. I assume you would be flying back to SFO from China. My experience with this was when i was flying back to SIN from PVG, and they gave us a lunch box with some cold food and a hot dish on the side, rather than a proper tray, and this was dinner. Maybe might be useful to bring some snacks just in case you are not used to it.
(4) There might be a lot of carry-on luggage. More than 1 piece per person.
(5) Not sure if toilets are cleaned mid-flight. So they stink. But so does the toilets in BA. They stink too.

Can't think of anything else, but these are based on my own experiences. Will write more when i remember.

I've flown them a couple of times, from HKG and ICN, but never from the US (so YMMV). I've found the FAs to be friendly, and some of them go out of their way for you if you're the only "Western" passenger. Also, Air China is very generous with free, undeserved, and unexpected upgrades -- I seem to be getting them just for being tall.

The last time I flew Air China (circa 2002/3), I ended up with an exit row seat on their 744. To be honest, I barely remember the smaller details of the flight (food, seat, ground crew, checkin), but I do remember that it wasn't as horrible as people think. I do remember joking with my sister that the admittedly green flight attendant must have been a maid in her previous live because she must have cleaned the each bathroom every 15 min.

I didn't think the service was any better or worse compared to the majority of my domestic flights. The aircraft? Granted the 744's were quite rustic, but then again other planes that fly from SFO to China aren't all that much better from what I recall. A lot of NWA's planes are pretty much in the same shape as Air China and I hear United's 744's are also getting pretty shabby in the back. Yes there maybe some communication problems in English, but it doesn't affect me since I do speak Chinese. I do recommend that you bring your own entertainment. Then again, what did people do on flights before AVOD?

Overall, I'd say it's a mediocre airline and by far no Singapore Air, but it's not as bad as people say. Bottom line: the flight was non memorable. My analogy would be to think it's similar to a very long coach transcon on a AA 762. It gets you there, but with no frills.

CA has one of the most annoying websites to navigate in.

Ground staff not any better. Last time I brought my brother to their counters at LAX for his flight, the agent never cracked a smile. Onboard was a little better but nothing to praise.

I'm sure the airline is better than when we took the airline back around 1992. The first seat I was assigned had no seat back, just the seat! Unimagineable, but true. After getting a true seat, we all had to disembark. While passing the cockpit, the pilots were poking their fingers at the cockpit ceiling. Who knows? After a while, we got to get on the plane and all went fine. We trusted fate more than the airline for sure. Good luck!

Maybe because the seat pitch is so small that they figured you can't even get into the window seat? ;)

Anyway, I think party_boy's analogy would probably be rather accurate. As I've never been on a US flight before. I would think it's similar to taking a lowcost carrier with some free food.

La Cochinita took Air China out of SFO with a tour group back in September. Going over her flight to Beijing was slightly delayed. Her return flight from Shanghai was cancelled due to a mechanical. Air China put all of passengers up at an airport motel and fed them. When they reboarded the next day, each passenger received an apology from an Air China staffer plus an envelope with the equivalent of about US$50 in Chinese currency.