Airchina Reviews 34

After the degrade of British Airways, I wasn't expecting so much from a cheap airline, plus the reviews weren't so great...
All our flights were exceptionally on time. Rarely happen with most "prestigious (in a sarcastic way)" companies. Check in was smooth. The food wasn't the best but at least not a disgusting curry...(see comments on BA). The space between seats is more than the average. But the most surprising thing: I lost an ear bud during the flight. After informing the flight attendant, in a couple of minutes another crew member went of his knees with a torch to retrieve it for me. Amazing! British Airways should use the extra money they charge to teach this customer focussed attitude to their staff. My compliments to Air China; you get what you pay for and more.

pluses: (i) cheap (ii) the airbus planes l had between uk and beijing were roomy and comfortable (iii) telephone customer service (when you find the number) was efficient, as were ground staff. minuses: (i) online check in doesn't work (ii) choice of films is poor (iii) food was atrocious. also (iv) they changed the time of one leg of my return journey so l arrived a day late. also (not their fault) beijing airport international transfers are chaotic as security is extraordinarily slow (lots of staff but only one scanner - and they are *really* thorough) - maybe 2-3 minutes per person.

Online check in is terrible. Probably only works in China, not in the US. The flight service itself was good

Customer service so unhelpful, they are trying to keep my money when they shouldn't. It's so inhuman. BTW IF YOU WANT A MANAGER THEY ONLY SPEAK MANDARIN, so please everyone else that don't speak mandarin don't book this airline, they are so unhelpful. Booking with this airline was one of the worse decisions I made in life

I HAVE FLOWN TO TOKYO WITH THEM AND WHILE THE PLANES ARE OLD AND NOISY AND HOT, YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR. THE CUSTOMER SERVICE PHONE CALLS ARE ALWAYS POLITE AND THEY HAVE ALWAYS RESOLVED ANY ISSUES I HAVE HAD.
NOT FIRST CLASS AND CRAMPED AND BASIC BUT AT THE PRICE I AM HAPPY WITH THE SERVICE PROVIDED APART FORM THE WEBSITE WHICH IS NEED OF A FULL OVERHAUL. SO DO NOT TRY AND CHECK IN, IT IS A WASTED EFFORT. CHECK IN AT AIRPORT IS SMOOTH AND NO HASSLE SO SAVE YOURSELF THE TROUBLE AND FRUSTRATION OF TRYING TO DO IT ONLINE AS IT WONT EVER HAPPEN. JUST PHONE THEM IF YOU HAVE ANY REQUIREMENTS, THEY ARE REALLY HELPFUL.
THEY ARE RELIABLE, CHEAP AND GET YOU WHERE YOU NEED TO GO WHICH IS ALL I NEED. FLYING WITH THEM AGAIN SOON FOR ANOTHER LONG HAUL FLIGHT.

I travel with a child from London to Beijing and booked the flight three months in advance. I booked the business class to ensure our travel is smooth and easy. The seats were reserved at the time of the booking with clear seat numbers issued in the ticket. Everything was fine. On the day I fly while doing online check in, our seats suddenly changed with no warning and i have to sit apart from my child. I called customer service, and they didn't give me clear reason or follow up to find out what actually happened to the change. They also didn't offer any assistance apart from advising me to go to the airport 3+ hours early to sort out with the check in desk. If i were travel on my own or didn't pay a high price on the ticket, I would not have a problem. But it was really frustrating they offered no practical assistance but kept telling us they can't do anything or compensate for the stress caused. I was on the phone with two different customer service teams for 2 hours. Truly disappointed and concerned with this airline. I would not recommend them to travelers with children or looking for smooth travelling experience. I will keep this updated here to give you a full review of the entire trip including in-flight experience as well as bags checking in.

Decent Flight from Tokyo to London – You Get What You Pay For

I flew from Tokyo Haneda to London Gatwick via Beijing. Check-in and all the initial procedures went smoothly, and once again, the allowance of two large checked bags was a great bonus.

However, after boarding, the flight was held for about an hour and we could not take off straight away. Fortunately, this did not affect us much as we had a seven-hour layover in Beijing, so we did not mind. Sadly, those who were transferring to Bangkok may have missed their flight.

The service on board was fine, with standard food and average staff. The toilets were not cleaned regularly and ended up quite filthy, which was disappointing. On the second leg of the journey, my sister's footrest was not working. The entertainment system was okay, but the selection was limited and my screen was lagging.

Other than that, for the cheap price, it was acceptable. You get what you pay for.

3/5

Pretty good experience, out of 4 flights only had issues with one where the crew were very rude. However on the other 3 flights they were very helpful. I would avoid booking flights on 777 as they’re outdated and need a refit, very uncomfortable on a 10 hour flight. 737,330 &350 are all very well looked after, clean and comfortable. All ground staff are polite and helpful. Meals are ok with western and Chinese options; plenty of drinks. For return economy flight less than £500 I’m very impressed. Would rather fly air china compared to British airways. Would definitely book again

We booked flights in July 2024 to visit Hong Kong in March 2025. These were the cheapest flights and we booked directly through their website.
They offer a free transit hotel for layovers over 6 hours and I purposefully chose a long layover on the return flight back to the London so that I could explore a bit of Beijing as I last visited the city in 1999. I had to call the customer service several times to book the transit hotel as each time they said the hotels for the next calendar year had not been confirmed yet. Eventually I called on 2 January 2025 and they said the hotel had already been confirmed for me.
The plane from London to Beijing was a new plane (the newest out of all the Air China planes we took for this trip). It was comfortable and had a nice large screen with USB charging points. All the other Air China flights were on older planes, without USB charging points so bring a battery pack if you are using a lot of devices.
Please note the security for transfers in Beijing Airport are painfully slow. We had one hour for our connection to Hong Kong which would usually be ok, but the staff were taking their time, and also the electronic gates stopped working. Anyway 10 mins before our flight was due to depart we went to the front of the queue to say we were late, and they let us pass. We ran through the airport and when we got to our plane the staff weren't rushed at all. It seemed there were still some other passengers who were later than us. Anyway we left 40 mins late but still arrived in Hong Kong on schedule. This was not Air China's fault, more the staff at Beijing airport.
The food on the flights was good. It's all Chinese meals. Being Chinese this was not an issue for me, I enjoyed them all. However they don't offer mid flight snacks unlike other airlines. At the end of the day, you pay for what you get and you can always bring you own. I was sufficiently well fed.
My tip for staying at the transit hotel is you need to catch a taxi into the city as it's far from the city and the city is spread out over a huge area. Allow 45mins -1 hour to get into the centre. The hotel is not a western chain, but for a free layover you can't complain. The room was spacious and they provided a Chinese style breakfast too.
I would recommend Air China. The customer service was good. Staff were friendly and helpful and it was great value for money.

Re booking is a nightmare. Never in my life I could imagine you need to sign and scan papers and send photocopies of documents to rebook a flight. Credit card payments don't work. A nightmare

Despite all the negative reviews I've booked with AirChina because they offered the best price. Had a long layover in Beijing, which allowed us to leave the airport and visit the Great Wall, which was an advantage for us, so their long layovers aren't necessarily a bad thing. First flight left on time and arrived 1 hour early, 2nd flight was delayed by an hour, but still arrived as scheduled, so can't complain. The plane was not worse than other companies, and they served drinks enough times with regular water runs throughout.
I was unable to request a special meal (gluten free) during the reservation, as apparently you need to call their customer services to request that. I thought calling a Chinese number from the UK would cost a lot so emailed their customer services and although they don't deal with special meal requests, they actually took care of it and confirmed that my special meal request has been added. I've also received text messages about it to confirm for each flight. I was very happy with this, until a few days before the flight I got text messages that a gluten free meal has been added for my partner as well, even though I haven't requested this. He wasn't impressed by this as would have preferred to eat a normal meal but not the biggest issue. Food quality was alright actually, but repetitive, chicken on both flights for both meals per flight. It would have been good to get a breakfast type of meal like eggs or something for one of the meals, but it's fine, I'm glad I was able to eat something gluten free.
Entertainment onboard was fine, watched a number of movies.

the worst company in the world as flight but much more as customer service, always unreachable. hours and hours to try connect with them and change my fligh but no way! i both another one with other company

I would give them a high 4 stars.
The planes were new. The food was good. I was impressed with how clean they kept the toilets. They did regular water runs.Flight price was unbelievably low.
Long layovers might be a negative for some but I knew that and made the most of visa free entry to China and spent day in Beijing.
They did cancel the original return flight but let me choose what day I wanted to return.

I bought tickets from their official website. I also entered my starairlines number. I followed all the rules. But even though I tried to call them by phone and email for months, they did not send me the miles I earned.

I reading all previous reviews and i can confirm that they keep changebthe fly even you schedule your trip..

I will give minus stars if I could! Air China is irresponsible enough to sell return tickets from China to U.K. but once I arrived in the U.K. Air China kept cancelling their flights and I was unable to return to China. They were still selling the tickets though! After a month of no alternative flights and after 6 months they agreed to refund the return portion of flights but would not accept refund of covid tests taken in readiness for the original return flight, which they cancelled without informing in advance, despite me being able to print out boarding passes the night before my flight. Only found out at Heathrow, when I was denied boarding. Waited for their response for six months only to be told to sort it through travel insurance!! Absolutely disgraceful, don’t book Air China - they are unreliable, unprofessional and totally unacceptable customer (no) service. Don’t waste your money with Air China!

I am still waiting for my refund, agreed and promised in December 2020, for flights cancelled in March 2020.Flights CA0824 & CA0787 28/29 March 2020. Appalling behaviour.

Very slow...they put me on the waiting for more than 45 mins from caller number 3 to caller number 2 , still waiting...cannot accept, and this call is not a free call!! Bad customer service!

Am really surprised seeing how low their rating is. I used AirChina multiple times over the last 3-4 years flying to Thailand through Beijing, Shenzen and Chengdu. Never had any big issues. There are some things that you should know - if you fly through Chengdu you need to go out, take your luggage and then check in again which is ennoying. Flying through Shenzen they will make you check in again without taking your luggage so if you purchase any alcohol in off duty you may have to get your luggage bacuse it's too difficult to take you straight to the off duty like in Beijing! I also had to cancel a flight I purchased for my gf as we had to postpone her journey - contacted infoline and was told - it's 100 gbp and 1 month waiting (money arrived in 4 weeks). As for the flights all was ok, the longer flight to China usually is in newer plane with entertainment (shorter flight in budget plane looking like European budget airways) food was not bad (no spirits served if you drink, only local beer and wine), not the biggest selection of movies but you will surely find something to watch (lots of Chinese and Bollywood movies). Staff friendly and helpful although not all of them speak good English (especially at the airport in Shenzen).

Terrible Terrible company. They are simply lairs and thieves. Just avoid them anytime.