Air China Reviews 382

We booked our flight through Lufthansa, but it was operated by Air China. Due to the codeshare system, we couldn't check in online, and our children (ages 3 and 9) were assigned separate seats, away from us. We offered to pay for seats next to the mother at the check-in desk, but it was refused, and we had to resolve the seating ourselves onboard. Despite the onboard service being good, the lack of proper seating arrangements and care for families was unacceptable. This experience has seriously shaken our trust in Air China as a Star Alliance partner.

I have already travelled with more than 20 companies, this is by far the worst experience I have ever had. Believe me, even it this is the very cheapest flight available, it is worth to expand, even if way more, to at least avoid all the nightmare they put their passengers through.

Worst company I have travelled with
Avoid when possibile

I am astonished at the poor reviews for Air China. I flew them for the first time last week from Tokyo to Beijing and return.
I booked them because they were the only flights available to get me to Beijing on the same day following a flight from the USA to Tokyo - it's complicated!
Having recently retired from 30 years in the aviation industry, I have travelled extensively on Western carriers and, like many others, as this was my first experience with a Chinese carrier, I was slightly apprehensive.
Nothing could have been further from the truth. The plane was a modern Airbus A321, it was clean, the seat was comfortable and the cabin crew were extremely friendly and attentive - on both flights. The aircraft departed and arrived ontime and I easily made my connection on the return to Tokyo.
The experience has put to bed any predjudices I may have had against Chinese carriers and I will definitly fly them again.
Now if we want to give an airline just 1 star, shall we talk about United????

Very much reliable fast and easy comfy

close to the worst sh... i ever tried . constantly checking for human. if mobilphone hiding a symbol so not possible to pass . no way of change prices. just bottom cr.ap

I've flown two different return journeys with them and never had an issue. The flights are more 'affordable' so didn't have high expectations and was pleasantly surprised. I've flown from Heathrow to Bangkok and back, and also Heathrow to Tokyo and back. All flights had a layover at Beijing Airport.

I pre-booked meals for the flight for my dietary requirements and the food was reasonably decent (minus the meals leaving from London, because when is plane food ever good that's made in the UK lol). Service and flight entertainment were also decent, and so was luggage allowance.

My only complaint is that you can't check-in online and have to get to the airport early for all flights, but besides that the price is good value.

Awful customer service.

I was supposed to call them and get a hotel transit.

1. Very hard to find a worker who actually understands English.

2. The communication between the staff horrible, one of the staff told me they would send email for hotel transit booking. Never got it. Called again. They say it´s full.

3. The hotel transit is full. Took me about 48 hours to get this answer. Flying in another 28 hours.

They tried their best, but it was like the workers live in different planets and have no idea what the other Air China staff has done with my ticket.

Flying tomorrow and I have 15h layover with apparently no transit hotel anymore.

My flight from London to Phuket was rescheduled less than a week in advance, resulting in a 24-hour delay of my flight.
Frustrating enough to loose a day of holidays, and pay for a night in a nice hotel that I wasn't going to use, but Air China's customer service was appalling.
I'm rightfully entitled to €600 compensation under UK Regulations, but have received absolutely no useful reply from Air China to at least 10 emails - the best I got was they we're going to pass on the issue, then never heard back, even after following up continuously.

Even after escalating my case to the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), who formally confirmed my entitlement to compensation, Air China has continued to be unresponsive. They are not only ignoring their passengers but also a national aviation regulatory body.

Save yourself the potential headache and choose an airline that values its passengers and respects the rules.

Multiple attempts made to contact air china but been totally ignored and left out of pocket. Appalling treatment we received from Air China between 15/06 and 16/06 that resulted in us being stuck at Beijing Capital airport (T3) for almost 12 hours and delaying our overall travel itinerary by 15 hours. However, flight CA960 was delayed by an hour and half making the connection to CA851 impossible. The only alternative flights offered were almost 12 hours later and would arrive into London Heathrow (CA937) - which was not our end destination. We asked for an alternative but were not given any. Instead of 06:35am at Gatwick, we instead landed at Heathrow at 17:40 and had to take nearly 3 hours of additional public transport to make it back home.

After being swapped onto the later flight as arranged at the Bangkok Air China check in desk, we were assured that vouchers for food/drink and hotels would be ready on arrival in Beijing. When we arrived in Beijing there was no one working on the help desk. The only person working was on the transfer gate before security. She was extremely rude when she tried to communicate in English, nor did she try to work cooperatively with us when a fellow passenger used a translation app. Not once did she say sorry for the delay. We asked her about the hotel, water and food as everything in the airport was shut and she just kept saying no.

We were stuck at the e-passport gate before security trying to get the assistance we were promised for over two hours. We were told to go through and find the air China desk. Once we went through security into the terminal, we discovered we had been lied to - as there was no Air China desk in the transfer terminal. We instead we tried to speak to staff at the Air China business class lounge as there was no other staff available. The staff member was extremely unhelpful and wouldn't contact anyone else at Air China in the main terminal check in desk to help us, even though they would have been able to make an internal call but we were unable.

We then attempted to find a member of Beijing airport staff and only then were we offered a 'transit hotel'. However, we spoke to immigration staff who advised us that the only available hotel was an hour round trip and that as British citizens without Visas, the immigration queues would take too long to re-enter and that it would not be worth leaving. So we were left for 12 hours without access to a bed or shower, with no food or water and nothing open inside the terminal. Completely inhumane.

Extremely disappointing experience with Air China. I was scheduled to fly from Seoul to London with a layover in Beijing. When I arrived at the airport, I was offered a direct flight to London that would arrive 2 hours earlier — I accepted and was told to wait while they sorted the details. After waiting for over an hour with no updates, I was finally told the direct flight was no longer available — and by that time, I had missed my original flight.

I was rebooked on a completely different flight with a layover, arriving 2 hours later than my original itinerary. No apology, no upgrade, no compensation. To make things worse, when I finally arrived in London, my luggage was missing.

No accountability, poor communication, and a total lack of customer care. I expected far better from a national airline. I won’t be flying with Air China again.

Awful, awful carrier. Cheaper than the rest because they fly via China. Tired and dirty interior, uncomfortable seats, rubbish entertainment, the rudest and most horrible cabin crew I have ever come across, the most disgusting food ever eaten on a plane. One free drink of alcohol if you are lucky, a warm horrible beer called snow or thimble of wine. Pay more go with a better airline. I hate Ryanair with a passion but I would choose Ryanair over Air China. Going on holiday is meant to be fun and relaxing but after flying with Air China and then having the tedious and awful experience of going through Chinese customs I am not sure it is.

I had a name difference issue with my flight due to my shortened name being on my ticket and this was different to my passport. Rather than resolve this and assist me Air China were hands down the most unhelpful service I've ever had the displeasure of using.

They refused to take any accountability, mislead me into getting a flight across the globe promising they could help me once I landed only to completely deny this once I arrived.

Once they have your money, they could care less. Ruined my holiday experience by refusing to give me even clarification or acknowledge that they could help with what is generally a small issue.

Lack of Response from Customer Relations – Unacceptable

We have sent multiple emails to your customer relations department regarding a time-sensitive matter, yet we have received no response. This level of disregard for customer communication is unacceptable and reflects poorly on your organization.

We are documenting this issue publicly due to the lack of accountability through proper channels. It is expected that a company of your size would maintain basic standards of customer service and responsiveness.

We request an immediate response and resolution. Continued silence will only further damage your reputation

Wasted over an hour trying to get the website to work and still could not get in to reserve a seat. This is a key point for me. I will not use Air China again.

Checking it is tougher than solving a puzzle with missing pieces - after 30 times trying - it deletes all you did, UX developer, this is a lack of respect with the user!

Air China lost my suitcase and it took them a month to get it back to me. I literally only had the clothes on my back so I had to buy everything for a 3 week trip…

Annoyingly, they’re meant to send a form if the bag isn’t found within 72h but it took them 10 days to get it to me.. when I filled it out they were able to confirm they had my bag. So much time and money could’ve been saved if they stuck to their own protocol.

I reached out to them for compensation since their negligence cost me over £400 in expenses. They also sent my suitcase back broken, I’d genuinely used it ONCE.. They support team barely spoke English and when they realised why I messaged them they stopped replying..

Air staff were lovely but the underlying systems are terrible. Fly at your own risk

I flew it once and I'm never flying it again. On the way to Moscow, the flight attendants served meals, they had no smile on their face or any politeness. When I went to do grab tea from the back, I was met with 2 or 3 flight attendants standing there, with no smile, the flight attendants didn't offer to help me with my tea. One time, a male flight attendant filled the cup with tea for me, but he looked like he was forced to do it. The staff were only talking with themselves and sometimes even ignoring me, which was very unprofessional. None of the flight attendants spoke even basic English. Horrible flight.

I flew many times with Air China and the service is great. One time the flight was delayed for 6 hours which made me missed the connecting flight and I was provided hotel/transport. Everything went well.

This was my first long haul flight but my travelling companions all told me it was the most rubbish they’d had. We took 4 flights in total with Air China and experience was the same across them all. Leg room is non-existent, TV screens didn’t work on one of the flights for myself or the person sat next to me, and staff are almost universally brusque and uncaring, with poor English.

I hope you like lukewarm, mediocre Chinese takeaway because you’ll be having it for every meal - it’s either “chicken and rice”, “pork and rice” or “beef and rice”, with the same sides (sauted celery and nuts / some weird tiny mayo salad / a small bowl of crunchy melon pieces) every time. was travelling with two vegetarians who were coarsely told they had to phone up and order “special meals” before the flight, which they didn’t know they had to do, so had to settle with picking at the rice from the meat meals. Also, good luck calling them considering they’re based in China.

Our flight from Beijing to Gatwick was delayed by an hour and seeking compensation is an archaic process of printing out a certificate (and it HAS to be in colour!!) and then carrying out Step 2 with it (and I still can’t figure out what Step 2 is).

And don’t get me started on the Online Check In. None of Air China’s website is mobile-friendly or seems to work in most browsers. Checking in for our flight home, four of us tried it on four different phones and a couple of different browsers and we all received different unique errors and problems, including having to pick out seats again even though we reserved them at time of booking (and so we couldn’t even pick them again because they were already reserved - by us!!).

After all that, you still have to go to front desk to pick up your boarding pass - which is only available in paper format. There’s a reason the “haven’t done online check in process” queue is so long at the airline desk - because it doesn’t bloody work!

Also, one of our companions found that their luggage bag had been ripped and the tag ripped clean off when we got it back at luggage collection.

Crap airline - really behind the times in all manners of customer service, UX and general flight experience.