shonamac

I have never flown Air China before but am now tempted by an attractive Premium Economy fare. How good or bad should I expect the flight experience to be?

Is the seating / food as bad as United economy? Is it comparable to Asiana economy? [These are the only two *A economy legs that I have ever flown, all other legs have been in Business]

IluvSQ

I have only flown them in business of First, but have seen in the back.
They will be better than UA, almost as good as OZ in regular Y.
If you are in PY, you should have a much better experience than either in Y.

dvs7310

Food is worse than UA and If I recall correctly PY doesn't get any better food on the Chinese carriers than regular Y. On the Chinese carriers, PY is more like United Economy Plus, though they do sell it as a separate class of service unlike UA. You'll have more legroom but the seat and service are essentially the same.

geminidreams

I have only flown united economy once in a 747 for 2 hrs and considered it to be something to avoid ever doing again.

I have flown Air China economy a lot but never longer than 4.5 hrs. I flew once PE which was marginally better than economy simply because there were very few people seated in PE. Other than that it was very similar to economy. Asiana is much better but it comes down to how long the flight is and what is the cost.

skidooman

Air China is not at par with Asiana for sure. Service-wise, it is better, but only marginally, than UA.

For long-run flights, I would try to get PE, but honestly it is not something I would pay for if I can have an alternative for a real PE (larger seats). Their PE is really like EconomyPlus, and with what is going on in the market it may not be good enough very soon.

djjaguar64

My dad and nephew who are both finicky flew with this airline from Singapore to Beijing. They had a lot of praise for the service & food in the J cabin.

LAX/HKG

I flew on CA LAX-PEK-HKG-PEK-LAX in J. Service was indifferent at best; food was OK; seat was dirty; lounge in PEK IMHO on of the worst in *A. I will try to avoid this airline if I can.

oliver2002

I've done CA longhaul on their 77W and 748. The service in C is OK, just don't have high expectations, they are not western oriented, but excellent if seen from a Chinese viewpoint.

I took a peek at their PE product in the 748: its just normal Y seat with a different pitch and a separate/different cabin. It certainly is not worth a premium.

ORDnHKG

No sorry, they are not better than UA, and way far from OZ, OZ is comparable with NH, SQ, BR, and CX, never had in the past or in the future will ever come close to OZ ! How is that your meal choice in Y are two chinese choices of either beef with rice or fish with rice sound to you ?

Also no, PY on CA is like other posters said, no much better experience other than more legroom, if you want real PY that has a much better experiencethan regular Y, you have to fly NH, JL, SQ, CX, or BR, but then those will cost you a lot more money.

Even for CA's F and C, I wouldn't fly them not unless there is no choice left other than UA, or price not much more than Y.

SwissBritMiss

To be fair, if you're Chinese, pretty good...

I've flown CA a number of times in Y. As mentioned, it is very Chinese-orientated - that permeates all the way down to the entertainment, food offerings and service. Take that how you will. Given the option, I'd prefer other Asian carriers which are more "Westernised", but would not actively avoid CA if there were a significant price or routing benefit.

On the comments about service, the biggest issue is the cultural and language barrier. Chinese service culture is mostly about getting the job done and getting out of the customer's face (who wants someone intruding on their privacy for longer than required?). Add onto that pretty poor English skills of the FAs and I can see how it comes across as rude. I've always found it quite pleasant, but I speak fluent Mandarin, and am probably a bit politer / more social than your average Chinese flyer.

PEK lounge is hit and miss. It's a huge space but there are a lot of Chinese Off-peak it's been perfectly adequate - nowhere near a European *G lounge but better than a UA - when busy, pretty hellish.

dvs7310

My biggest gripe with the C and F lounges is the refrigerator temperature where the cola and beer is stored. It's nowhere near an acceptable level of cold, I'd say sometimes as warm as 15 degrees and if you find "good one", it might be slightly lower than 10 but you're never going to get an ice cold drink out of any of them. The could stand to step up the snacks as well, not much variety there.

1353513636

That's Asian custom...sort of how many Asian airlines have very warm cabins.

LAX/HKG

That's not necessarily true. I have always been able to get cold drinks in HKG.

geminidreams

So I was upgraded to PE last night on PEK - BKK. I had spent 5 hrs in the lounge as *G. I don't mind the lounge there, been in many worse. I find the main courses quite good and if not I go for noodles. Yes drinks are warm, there was once an ice machine at front but now you need to go to the back bar for an ice bucket. The wifi is pitifully slow. I needed to book a hotel room for that night and it took about 40 min to log on, change some preferences and book the room.

The plane was a 777. Seats were same/similar to economy. I don't like the 2 5 2 layout but then I got 5 to myself so warmed up to the idea. Got a hot towel prior to departure, was handed a bottle of water and declined the slippers. It seems some of those that paid received priority lanes for immigration in BKK but it only took about 4 min for me to pass thru so no great benefit.

There is more leg room, probably about 100mm. I went down to economy and it was packed, PE was about 1/4 full. I didn't get meal service on the first pass and only had fish on second pass when they saw I was no longer lying down. I declined and just had an apple I picked up in the lounge as wasn't overly hungry.

Was offered a drink, got a Pepsi Max. Being a Zero addict this didn't go down well. I usually come prepared by sneaking a can of zero out of the lounge but was travelling heavy so didn't have room.

Flight left on time so ended up arriving 45 min early to BKK. Entertainment was abysmal. Flight was 4.5 hrs and they didn't show a movie. Perhaps this is a good thing as last time I flew to Phuket the showed a movie about some herders in a Ger fighting a wolf pack for 2 hours which was tedious in the extreme. This time when I got up about 1 1/2 hrs into the flight they were showing a short film consisting of some weird American suburb where everyone seemed to have a pitbull where they would go out walking the dog and then try to restrain them from killing everything in their path. All this while a guy in the front row was standing up doing a fitness routine in front of the screen which helped block out the bizzare program being shown. Finally I decided to return to lying down on my layflat combo seat listening to music.

Air China also has a policy of having no electronic equipment operating in flight which as per usual most people ignore but if they decide to enforce it makes a short journey especially long. They also never switch the seatbelt sign off.

In saying all that I can tolerate Air China on short flights as I get my *A credits and some of the routes are convenient.

oliver2002

Strange, their 77W should have inseat IFE for all classes? Not that it has much western content, but still.

2-5-2 sounds strange too. I recall 3-3-3 in Y...

Mainland Chinese are not a big fan of cold/chilled drinks for some reason. Life goes on. I usually avoid ice cubes anywhere, even in the US&A, so when in Rome...