Air China Reviews 

China Eastern ( and Air China ) really set a very high bar for supporting passengers with mobility issues.
Because of ill health I had the occasion to fly with China Eastern recently. I was travelling overseas to a world renowned hospital to have some medical investigations carried out. But because of my current health, and age I was obviously going to experience some difficulty during the journey, as nobody was available to assist me during the flights.

China Eastern were asked if they could give me any assistance, if needed. Their response was exceptional! They went way over and beyond what might be expected in those circumstances ( and at short notice ), and ensured that from start to finish, a journey of over 10 hours, I was completely looked after and cared for. The aircrew on both flights were really lovely, and although I did not need any extra help during the flights, they repeatedly came back to me to ask me if I was alright, or needed anything. They provided me with wheelchair support from the check-in desk to the aircraft door...and from the aircraft door to the terminal on first arrival, and the same on the second leg of the flight which was with their sister carrier Air China.

There is no other way to describe their 'total' care for passengers, than to say it was superb! It was literally seamless from start to end. I've travelled with them so often and will continue to do so whenever I have the opportunity. With very sincere thanks to China Eastern ( and their sister carrier Air China ).

On August 23rd, 2023, I was flying from Amsterdam to Frankfurt on flight LH993, then Frankfurt to Beijing on flight CA932. Then, I was supposed to continue my journey to Shanghai. However, I could not make it to the scheduled flight since I needed to fill in very detail health and arrival forms (which could have already been provided during the flight to save time for people with connecting flight), performed covid test, went through long immigration line, transferred to other terminal, and went through another security lane all within 1 hour 15 minutes after my arrival in Beijing International Airport. I was begging a lot of people in front of me if I could cut lines since my flight was already boarding. Unfortunately, after all those struggles, I still could not make it to my connecting flight to Shanghai. After trying to calm myself down and talking to the security, I was directed to go to the Air China ticket counter. From there, I was told by Air China office lady that I can either get off at Beijing (my luggage is still there at the time) or reschedule my flight to Shanghai. I told the employee: "if I can get out in Beijing then it is okay; I don’t have to go to Shanghai". Never have I ever told that my return ticket would be blocked if I didn’t complete my departure to Shanghai. I was also not told if I needed to re-book my return ticket. I even received an approval stamps (photo attached) from the Air China staff on my boarding pass indicating that I could exit at Beijing. Therefore, I thought everything was fine and I was travelling through other cities with separate trains and airplanes to other cities in between Beijing to Shanghai.

The great disaster occurred on September 11th, 2023, at 11:35 am when I was supposed to fly back home with Air China from Pudong Shanghai International Airport all the way to Schiphol Amsterdam Airport with flight CA935 & LH1002. I was not able to check-in and the Air China office lady refused to print out my boarding pass. After quite some time, they came back to me and told me that I was at fault since I didn’t complete part of my previous journey from Beijing to Shanghai 3 weeks prior. Therefore, my return ticket is blocked. The solution from Air China staff was to rebook my ticket as buying new ticket where I had to pay 1300 EURO to get on this flight. Please bear in mind that my roundtrip ticket only cost me 620 EUR. So they proposed to me to pay twice the ticket price that I already paid. And it is the price for a one-way ticket, which is insane.

I have attempted to address this issue by going in-circles and explaining to the customer service at the ticket office, the supervisor of Air China on duty and the airport manager. However, the responses I received were below standard and I feel that my concerns were not adequately addressed. Some of the responses I received from the Air China employee were unprofessional:
- “You need to pay for this 1300 EUR, if not then who is going to pay. Am I the one who supposed to pay 1300 EUR for you?”
- “You need to prove to me who said you can get out in Beijing, give me his/her name. Without it, how can we know if you really went to Air China counter in Beijing. How can we know you are not lying?”
- “I cannot help you anymore. If you want to get on this flight, you need to pay this fee.”
- “I cannot help you to book another ticket. Only Air China.”

With all of these issues happening to me, not a single person in Air China staff apologized for what happened with the situation. They just bluntly put the blame on me as their customer.

With so much desperation, I had to book a new one-way ticket back through Bangkok to Dubai then Amsterdam. This ticket had costed me additional 640 EUR from my saving account and I had to wait another 12 hours in Pudong Shanghai International Airport without any single compensation from Air China.

I strongly believed that Air China as the member of Star Alliance should have the potential to provide exceptional products/services but unfortunately my personal experience told totally opposite story. I tried to contact the customer service online by sending email and through phone but of course it didn’t have any proper response from their side.

Just beware of how you will be treated if you ever decide to fly with Air China.

Never fly again with this airline staff are rude. No manners!

All day long trying to do an online check in - blocked over and over again - won't book this ever agian.

Can't be compared to most European Airlines. The staff is more than friendly, happy to help with any needs. I forgot to let the airline know that I'm vegan, but they prepared a mushroom dish for me. The stewardess asked multiple times whether or not I need another meal etc. A long 10 hours flight felt way more comfortable than the connecting one with the Austrian Airline. Miss Wang and the rest of the crew did a great job to ensure everybody's comfort from Beijing all the way to Poland. Looking forward to my next trip with Air China.

Seats are so small and terrible food from AKL(Auckland, New Zealand) to PEK(Beijing, China)
CA-784

Tarvelled in multiple airlines around the globe but this one is the worst,as i came to Pakistan from Australia and the flight was cancelled due to the disease originated by chinese themselves Corona virus,and later when i asked for another flight they simply said we cant do anything ,go back to Australia and ask refund from where you bought it .Long story short they cancelled the flight and did not issue me a new ticket and now they are saying you cant even get a refund ,furthermore directing me towards Either head office China or Pakistan again and again .
THEY SIMPLY DONT WANT TO REFUND .
RESPECTED READERS, ITS MY BEST ADVICE TO YOU GUYS IS NOT EVER TRAVEL BY AIR CHINA,WORST EXPERIENCE.

My daughter has been trying for over a year now to get a refund from AirChina. I can understand the delay in the refund at the height of the pandemic but this present delay is ridiculous. She was told she would receive her refund in September of last year (2020). She received an email yesterday saying it would be paid within 30 days - what a joke. Never book with this airline. At this rate she'll never be repaid.
Michael McGowan

Do not bother to try and claim for cancelled flights with this airline. I booked a flight to Manila in March 2020. My flight was booked for 5th December to go spend xmas with my 6year old daughter. Got to the airport only to be told that the flight had been cancelled months before. I had to make special arrangements at great cost. Contacted air China and they tried to say it was lastminute.com,s fault. Then they try 2 more different reasons. The best way to beat this airline is to take them straight to a small claims court. Because air China will completely ignore your claims until you make it official. Once the court send them the papers they pay up straight away to stop the case against them. Best advice to anyone is to straight away email them and give them 2 weeks to resolve it otherwise you will begin legal action. Keep copies of your email to show the court that you tried to resolve it. It only costs £75 to bring a case and it will be dealt with in about 6 to 8 weeks. If you try the ombudsmans or the other resolvers you will be waiting about 9 months and you still might not get the result you wanted. Save yourself time and stress and go straight to court. They can't deny it to the judge. Good luck and don't ever book with air China.

Great service, nice flight attendants, and barely any delays. Their lounges are one of the best. Would highly recommend this airline.

Impossible to get a refund from them. I submitted a form through their website and now after 5 months I still haven't heard anything from them. I just called their customer support, they told me it would be up to another 6 months before I could receive a refund. Completely unreasonable.

WORSE EXPERIENCE EVER

Boarded a flight to Beijing and it was an absolute nightmare. The flight had a 5-hour delay for a start. The plane was dirty and very uncomfortable, the staff was rude when they didn't just ignore you. No phones allowed, no tablets, no electronic devices. The only entertainment on a 12 h flight was Chinese propaganda in CHINESE....brilliant.
They had 2 security staff (police officers) patrolling the plane to check for phones and were aggressively shouting at passengers. We were not allowed snacks on the plane. The food served was appealing..I wouldn't have given it to my dog.No refreshments offered either and we only managed to get a glass of water after asking several times.
We got to Beijing 7 hours later than planned which meant we missed our connecting flights ( as did most passengers on our flight). No help was offered and we had to run back and forth across the gigantic airport to try and find an Air China agent willing to help us.
We had to queue for hours and only got some help after we teamed up with other passengers to literally block the access to their desk and demand a solution. No accommodation, no food or refreshments were offered. We were finally put on another flight hours later which meant we missed out on a very important family event and got to our destination absolutely exhausted.

I had to board a return flight with them a couple of days later and the thought of having to go through the same experience again completely spoiled my holiday and filled me with terrible anxiety.

Worst airline I have ever used

Absolutely Horrendous if it was possible to rate minus stars they would be getting it!!
Flight home to the U.K. from Manila Philippines cancelled by Air China 5 hours before I was due to fly, the whole thing was booked through lastminute.com who have been absolutely useless from the minute I was in trouble not only have they never responded to any email or phone call just like air China the lying company here advised me I would be refunded half of my trip £360 in February ......June 30th now and not a single penny received! I have been left over £1000 out of pocket as I was left stranded over 7000 miles from home and lastminute.com advised me that they nor air China were willing to put us on another flight to the U.K. I advised them it’s their obligation to make sure we got home safely whether the new flight costs them more or not and the advisor I spoke to was unbelievably rude and said it wasn’t his problem ...... I would never recommend this company to anyone and to be honest with how long it has been with no reply or refund I’m currently in the process of acquiring legal advice as I will make sure that not only lastminute.com but also Air China pay for the absolute S*** storm they left me in back in February!!

I did not manage to fly with the company given the pandemic but they refunded my flight in its entirety -no hassle and quite quickly.

Having to cancel my flight to Beijing last month I now have a full refund from Air China. Their website was easy to book, the customer service contact easy to reach and they have delivered on their refund well within the stated framework.

In these turbulent times especially for an Airline their service has been exemplary.

Would definitely book with them again in future

** update** use this email address to contact air China, they are now being very helpful

mailto: ca ‘underscore’ Europe at air China dot com ( won’t allow me to type email address )

Flew to Thailand last year with air China and had no issues at all. This year however, I booked through a 3rd party and my flight was cancelled. It’s now been 4 weeks and still no refund! I’m now paying interest in the amount so will be taking this up with air China as the 3rd party star they are STILL waiting for the refund to forward to myself.

Here is a UK number for Air China 020 3275 0200 for anyone who might need it

Won’t use them again simply because they don’t care!

They emailed us to notify the cancelation of our flights and to inform us that we could contact them for help on alternatives.
It is almost impossible to get a hold of them from New Zealand, their phone numbers are from overseas and when it gets picked up, the call drops.
Finally got a hold of someone here in Auckland that told us to apply for the refund online and that there was no alternatives or anything.

We applied for the refund which confirmed saying that it would take up to 6 days to be completed. It has been over 2 weeks and still n refund, no replies, no answered phone calls, nothing.

We had to buy new flight tickets from a different air company that due to the short notice, came out a lot more expensive and still have not received that refund "which put us in financial complications".

Impossible to contact customer service. Useless website
Like many other complaints about Air China, it is impossible to contact anyone at customer service for flight info, seat assignments, etc. Their web site is totally useless. I was supposed to fly back on the 8th February on a 10.05 PM back to Guangzhou via Chengdu but I was informed by the English speaking supervisor that I was not on the flight back nor on the next day. She gave me several numbers to ring (expensive) but all I got was a Chinese speaking person. I tried the booking agent and they booked me on a flight that didn't exist. I need to get back. Air China staff are brilliant on the plane but where are the staff on the ground. Air China if you do have someone reading this in the UK (is there really an Air China UK), please contact me and get me a return flight back please

4 flights made and never had any problem.
No delay, nice food, large choice of movies, the prices were really low.

After taking many long haul flights I have NEVER received such poor service as I did with my flight with Air China. After booking a flight and receiving full email confirmation I was left stranded in Tokyo being refused boarding due to a failure from Air China to generate a ticket reference. The Air China staff refused to help resolve this matter or inform me about the status of my booking and merely handed me a slip of paper with a phone number for customer services which I could not contact due to it being an international number. After an hour of trying to receive support from the air China staff no one informed me of whether the flight was overbooked or this was due to a technical failure, finally after 1.5hrs they offered me the chance to rebook the flight at £2000. Ridiculous. The staff waited until the gates closed to tell me I was unable to board the plane. This left me no option but to book a new flight with an alternative airline at an extortionate rate with no apology or information of why I was left in this situation. Appalling. Booking code:NTRP6P