Air China Reviews 382

I recently embarked on a return trip from Beijing to Madrid with Air China, and to say it was a nightmare would be an understatement. My experience with this airline was nothing short of appalling, and I feel compelled to share my grievances to warn fellow travelers.

Firstly, let's talk about the lack of Wi-Fi on both legs of the journey. In this day and age, Wi-Fi has become a standard amenity, especially for long-haul flights. However, Air China seems to be living in the stone age, as they offered no Wi-Fi whatsoever. This made my 12-hour flight an excruciating exercise in boredom, as I couldn't even use the internet for work or entertainment.

The drink selection was another major letdown. Despite their menu promising a variety of alcoholic beverages, including vodka, none were available. I specifically requested vodka, only to be told they were out of stock. And don't get me started on the wine - it ran out after just two glasses! From then on, it was water and juice for the duration of the flight, with no snacks to tide me over between meals.

Speaking of meals, the quality was abysmal, with not a single vegetarian option in sight. To add insult to injury, they ran out of one of the dishes, leaving me with nothing but fish and rice, which I don't even eat. The timing of the drinks and food service was also a joke - by the time my meal arrived, I had already finished my drink!

As if all of this wasn't bad enough, the crew seemed completely disinterested in providing even basic levels of service. They were unapproachable and seemed to go out of their way to avoid interacting with passengers. It was clear that customer comfort and satisfaction were not priorities for Air China.

Considering the exorbitant cost of the ticket, I expected far better from China's national airline. Instead, I was met with incompetence, indifference, and discomfort throughout the journey. I believe some form of compensation is warranted for the sheer inconvenience and disappointment caused.

In conclusion, if you value your time, money, and sanity, steer clear of Air China for long-haul flights. There are plenty of other airlines out there that actually care about their passengers' experience. Don't make the same mistake I did.

Avoid Air China at all costs.

WARNING ...DONT HAVE A MEDICAL EMERGENCY ON BOARD THEY DO NOT CARE AND WILL NOT ASSIST ...SORRY THEY WILL ASTIST AFTER THEY HAVE IGNORED YOU AND YOU AVE TO PRACTICALLY SHOUT AT THEY .. LIKE I HAD TO .... LUCKY THEY ASSISTANT WAS SCROLLING THROUGH HIS PERSONAL PHONE RIGHT BEHIND ME ...IGNORING THE ASSISTS CALL AND NOT EVEN REMOTELY BOTHERED THAT I HAD A MEDICAL EMERGENCY ... SO GREAT SERVICE ... AND JUST SO YOU KNOW ... THEIR SERVICE MANAGER EVEN SAID ON A PHON CALL THAT DURING TAXI AND TAKE OFF IF YOU HAVE AN EMERGENCY .. THEY WILL NOT HELP... I WAS SUPER SHOCKED TO HEAR A MANAGER SAY THIS...SO GOD HELP ANYOE WHO HAS A HEART ATTACK OR CHKING ... WILL BE GET NO ASSISTANCE .. ACCORDING TO AIR CHINA OFFICIALS

BY THE WAY ... THE ABOVE IS POSTED DUE TO A TELEPHONE CONVERSATION WITH THEIR SERVICE MANAGER... WHEN ASKED IF DURING TAKE OFF AND TAXI IF SOMEONE HAD A MEDICAL EMERGENCY , SHE REPLIED THAT HER STAFF WOULD NOT ASSIST DUE TO REGULATIONS...... EVEN THOUGH I SAW CHINESE PEOPLE BEING HELPED...

after being scared by some of the reviews, we had an amazing trip with air china! we flew london to tokyo with a layover in shanghai, the layover arrival wasn’t the smoothest but that is my only complaint! food was great and filling, great range of entertainment, comfy seats with comfy pillows and blankets, loads of luggage included, couldn’t ask for much more!

Lovely staffs, delicious food, easy boarding, smooth landing, and time efficient. Those are the qualities I experience from my first ever Air China from LHR-MNL via Beijing. The flight was short that I reach PH just in no time. Hope you'll upgrade me when I get back from my holidays. Hehe

Air China are the worse fly company ever exist!
Rude people in Peking and very bad employees for wheelchair service that nearly hurt me bad because he drive the wheelchair like a crazy man.
I send many emails but Air China don’t take responsibility for bad people working for them.

London to Melbourne-layover at chine.
Heathrow checking staffs are horrible.they don’t speak English and speak their own language in front of passengers.same as the boarding gate.they have no idea what they are doing seems like undertrained.no smiles or nothing didn’t even say hello .

Food is disgusting, even for Chinese passengers! The stop over was bad organised, multimedia is poor.. staff is very kind, but not really professional compared to other companies.. 2 stars because they have WiFi on board, and sometimes it works for just WhatsApp messages

The only difference with premium economy and economy is wider hard seats and an extra suitcase. The dinner was chicken or beef with rice. The tea was chicken with rice or beef with noodles, both meals came with a cup, neither time was it filled up. The service level was poor. The headphones were poor. The volume on the screen barely cover the noise of the plane. And everything had Chinese subtitles, whether you wanted them or not. Couldn't use the controller as I couldn't get it out of the seat 33c The one star is for the emergency details which was a cartoon with a panda

Had a long trip Thailand to Cph over Beijing... super service and pleasant trip... Thanks!!

Six hour delay, no means of resolution or compensation. Nobody answers the phone number given. I have tried multiple times to engage with the European customer service and they keep referring me back to a number no one answers. AND I have a hearing disability and they refuse to consider accessible routes to resolution.

Customer service was awful customer service on flight, at the airport and online. The food was average at best and cheap quality drinks. To make matters worse I was unexpectedly moved from extra legroom seat to one with less space. The entertainment screen and USB charging port didn't work on 3/4 of the flights. I encountered issues with the website after I booked my flight. Lastly, the service in the airport lounge was awful, with poor English communication throughout my experience. Overall appalling experience, DO NOT PUT YOURSELF THROUGH IT I would not recommend this airline due to these numerous disappointments.

Had an excellent experience recently travelling from London - Auckland (New Zealand) via Beijing. Staff, food, seats, flights themselves were all great.

For flights over 9 hours, you receive a free hotel room with a transfer. Get your visa from the 'Tourist Visa' counter. You get a visa on arrival (check eligibility first), and then find the Air China service desk in the terminal you're in. They check your name, then direct you to a transfer bus. The hotel room was clean and cosy, no windows, but functional and would have been very easy to sleep.

Things to note:

- Get to check in three hours early, there is no workable online check in and the line was very long!
- Bring your own movies. The selection isn't great on the plane.
- The food is great but I would bring snacks if you want food in between meals - they don't offer heaps of snacks.
- If you want to go into China on your stopover, then download AliPay and set it up, you can't do anything without it.
- Get ExpressVPN first (you can't download it in China), it's the best VPN for bypassing the Chinese firewall and accessing western sites.
- If you need help with your booking, don't bother with the online sites. Call the help line. If you don't have a mainland Chinese number, the site doesn't work well. Call the help line!

Overall, 9/10 experience, only thing that would've made it better is a better app / check in, and more time in the wonderful country that is China!

The flights were on time. The crew was kind. Food was ok but bring your own if want more gourmet food, also it’s not a party plane so don’t expect alc refills. Could do with some cleaning but I had my disinfectant so cleaned my seat belt , tray etc. Not a big deal. Toilets clean. Seats were good size, I’m not skinny but average body type.
If I was paying top money London- Tokyo I’d want more from the service. But 730£ round trip Sakura season, doubt could’ve got anywhere cheaper. I liked entertainment variety.
Overall, I can’t complain about the company and the services I received. I’d use them again. The app is great and easy to navigate.
If you want more than avarage , fly more expensive airlines and stop complaining about not getting what you didn’t pay for :)

I’ve recently flown Air China. Heathrow to Chengdu and return. After booking an economy ticket I upgraded to business class at Heathrow. Flight was on time, check in and in flight staff were super helpful. There was also a family that were travelling with a baby. Flight attendant took care of the child to allow parents time to eat food etc. Food was great. The price was far below what you would pay on other airlines.
Entertainment was adequate. A few Western films available. Air China’s website requires a lot of updating though. Online check in can also be troublesome. Don’t stress. Do it at the airport.
If you fly to any foreign country, try and make an effort to learn a few words of the language. It will get you along way.

We recently flew with Air China for the first time for our honeymoon to Japan. This was an indirect flight through Shanghai Pudong from Gatwick. While the flight itself was average (food was passable, inflight entertainment didn't work, chairs were as comfortable as they are going to get), the way the airline conducts itself is questionable. We found our connecting flight in Shanghai Pudong to be quite harrowing (rude, abrupt staff, intense and intrusive amount of surveillance). We also had a particularly bad experience on our flight back where Air China at Narita Airport did not open the check in desk until 5pm (flight was leaving at 7.30pm) and seemed completely unbothered by the fact there was a 200 person strong queue waiting to check in luggage for a flight that is due to leave in 2.5 hours. When we spoke to staff there, they were completely incapable of managing the queue and totally incompetent, at one stage causing multiple arguments after appearing to prioritise Asian customers over western and pushing them ahead in the queue unnecessarily. We received no apologies about the significant delays that were happening due to Air China's incompetence and no reassurance that we would make our flight. We were incredibly distressed at the thought of missing our flight and the subsequent connecting flight and no-one appeared to care about this.

In addition, staff at Pudong Airport were very rude to customers. There was an incident where multiple people on our flight had their luggage pulled back because there was something not allowed in it. Rather than calmly explaining this to the individuals, they aggressively shoved paperwork in their faces, demanding they signed it without giving any information as to what the paperwork was about or the implications of this. When they were questioned further about this, staff became quite angry and abrupt, which was uncomfortable to witness. It turned out that these unfortunate people would not receive their luggage at Gatwick and would have to chase up when they will receive it once they land in London but the staff clearly were not going to tell them this and only offered this information when people strongly questioned them.

We felt quite uncomfortable at the lack of reassurance and customer service and did not know that Air China is owned by the Chinese Government. There is a strong uncomfortable element of surveillance when you cross through Chinese airports as part of your transfer and we felt very unwelcome.

We would not use Air China again and feel like we got off lightly compared to others in terms of our individual experience of this flight.

I was on flight from pudong to gulin, I am an vegetarian and staff onboard made sure that I had food and they went out of the way to make it happen,, If not other flights usually don't care much ,,,,thanks to the wonderful staff I deeply appreciate air china for having them

This flight was incredibly cheap. The checkin was smooth, the boarding was swift, and the staff on the plane were so lovely and helpful. The in flight entertainment is awful, so do download some movies before you fly. The negative reviews this airline is receiving are from people who paid £300 to fly half way around the world and are expecting emirates. Don't expect too much and you'll have an amazing flight!

AIR CHINA SHARE PRIVATE CUSTOMER DATA! DO NOT USE THEM! THEY DON'T ADHERE TO GDPR OR PIPL.

I have received others customers flight details including they're full names, information about their flight, passport details, how they paid etc.

I have called and emailed to get in contact about this however their customer service agents on the phone just ignore me when I inform about this and refuse to let me speak to any managers/supervisors.

Customer service is a joke, they do not reply to emails and I have spent over 3 hours on the phone with them in total and they have not resolved any of my issues, I have still haven't received my own flight itinerary from them despite calling and emailing on multiple occasions and their service agents promising to email it over to me.

One of their own staff members have informed me that her computer doesn't work properly so when she takes payments over the phone, so she has to note down my bank details and use another colleague's computer to make payments.

STAY WELL CLEAR OF AIR CHINA.

The staff make this airline great. The website is terrible but customer service was great. The day before we flew from Gatwick to Shanghai, I had an infected cyst on my neck, the NHS hospital fobbed me off with tablets. On the plane, my cyst burst, the air stewardess gave me a medical kit and helped me sort it. She also checked in on me later during the flight.

The inflight entertainment was fine, a few western movies and a few chinese movies with english subtitles. But for an 11 hour flight, I tried to sleep mostly. Hardly any turberlence, take off and landing were great. The staff, just fantastic.

We were told we needed to collect luggage at Shanghai and check in at the airport for connecting flight to Chongqing, everything was on time with no problems. Flight was bumpy but take off and landing was fine.

I had a visible splint on my arm when checking in to the Chongqing flight, the Air China employee offered us a free upgrade unfortunately all 1st class was fully booked but the thought that counted.

I would say overall, website isnt great but the rest was spot on.

I do have to say if your booking with a Chinese national airline and your going to China, try to learn some Chinese both reading and spoken, a few words, destination names etc go a long way and help your journey. Bear in mind, we English dont bother speaking other languages on a flight and in the airport, why should China not do the same.

I flew with Air China last Jan 22,2024 around 12 in the afternoon and I can honestly say that it is one of the best flight I had ever had.The flight attendants were very efficient,cheerful and friendly .They attended to every details during the flight .After each usage of the washroom one will immidiately tidy it before allowing the next user.Excellent.In my admiration I asked the name of the very charming flight stewardess and she said...KIRATIKUN THANA YARINDA...This flight of mine as I said is one of the best.Salute to all lovely staffs