Airchina Reviews 

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.

The ticket was purchased from Travel Trolley but they are blaming Air China for delays in refunding the £580 paid. Can't approach Air China as didn't book direct. Flight was cancelled by Air China in Feb 2020. Still waiting for a refund and it's now July. Poor!!!!

I won’t never fly with this airline

I bought the ticket from November 2019 for the February 2020 vacation but due to the epidemic, I canceled the ticket and I waited four months to receive the confirmation email, then they said I waited another four months to money into the account and they blocked my email

The worst airline in the world

I've tried contacting the Company for any information on my pending flights, and there is zero feedback. It's contributing to stress and anxiety, and potentially to additional cost. Avoid this company!
Edit: one star remains, but I would advise people to use email rather than phoning them. Yes, it takes a bit longer, but if you can repeat your emails daily or every two days, you will get a reply within a fortnight.
Use Paypal to pay for flights (if you must travel with them) and take on insurance.

Be careful and stay away from air China! My friend booked flight from Bangkok to Austin Texas with specific return date, but air China rescheduled the return flight for him for other dates more then twice without getting his permission!! VERY bad customer service, they don’t want to cancel the ticket although the initial return flight that booked was cancel. STAY AWAY FROM AIR CHINA!!

Nice service, just need to either give 1 free luggage or lower the luggage price. Staff was very nice and caring.

Hiya, we have made a claim against the airline cause of our damaged luggage which couldn’t be repaired by your third party contracted repair service. We have sent several emails but haven’t received any information so far. They keep on referring this to call the office and no one ever picks up the phone in there during the day. Can someone please get in touch with me immediately, as this is a total lack of professionalism, not providing any info, saying you’ll get in touch within 5 days and not getting back. Be aware of their customer relation services, as if anything goes wrong, it goes wrong!!

Horrible policies and customer experience! A huge scam. Will never book a flight with them again

Utterly useless website won't allow me to check in even though it's 36 hours. Won't allow me to choose a meal and I have special dietary needs. I would avoid like the plague. I hope whoever designed their crappy website and app (don't even bother downloading it) aren't flying their planes. Bunch of cowboys and amateurs. Rubbish, should be no star option for these charlatans.

Disgraceful service and attitude. Avoid this airline.

Flight: 13 Oct 2:30am, JFK-Hong Kong, CA990.

Due to unexpected transport problems (incredibly, NY JFK's Airtrain system broke down, leaving us stranded onboard), I arrived at the Air China check-in desk exactly one hour before the flight. However, the staff had already closed the check-in desk (there was literally just one person left, closing down computers etc); and they would not let me check-in.
The rules state check-in closes one hour before the flight, but the Air China staff had clearly closed the counter before that cut-off time.
There were around 20 passengers left stranded due to being stranded on the airport's airtrain shuttle, but Air China made no attempt to help. In fact, the staff were completely indifferent.

Air China refused to refund the money and would only allow us on a later flight if we paid the fare difference in full - which was several thousand dollars. I had to cancel my trip.

I advise you never to buy tickets with Air China. If everything goes as planned you might be fine; but if there are any unexpected problems, Air China has no interest in helping and will be completely inflexible.

Choose a better airline that Air China, one with reasonable customer service, one that solves problems rather than simply waving away passengers in need.

AL

After reading so many bad reviews we were worried!
Before travel I'd recommend downloading the App, you do have to navigate the website many many times to get what you want, this company requires patience. If you have chosen this airline it's because you have a cheap flight! So don't go expecting 5* service, it's a BUDGET airline.
I'd like to mention Ksenia Jankevits in the Europe Callcenter as she has been most helpful.
Our flight from Heathrow to Singapore was fine, what I expected for a cheap flight and budget airline.
Aircraft was old yes, both long haul sectors. Beijing to Singapore was much better on a Dreamliner.
Food was not edible so take some stuff from the airport. It passed time. Drinks were limited and they are very stingy only half cup of wine allowed once per flight! The STEWARDS are extremely abrupt and don't smile, they are just rude so ignore them. We only came across 1-2 stewards that seemed helpful who were male. The female stewards had attitude!

Transit in beijing, ok so before you join any que, ask 3 people first.
If you are going into beijing then join the foreigner que.
if you are transiting then go further down to the international transfer,
if you are wanting to see beijing for a few hours as you have a long wait, go even further up then you will see the 24/144 hour visa desk, you have to fill a form get into a que, get a stamp then go back and join the foreigner que, it should take under 1hr depending on your arrival time.
Ask 3 people if you are not sure, as the 1st person may give you wrong info! No one can understand English that well and staff at PEK are not friendly!.

You have chosen this airline as you have found a cheap flight right? So expect a budget airline budget website and budget travel, do not expect Qatar or Emirates service, you have to be patient and work through the website several times on a laptop/computer or iPad. Get the app as a back up.

I would travel with Air China again if I have a cheap flight.

I was recently on some Air China flights from London to Tokyo via Beijing (and back).

I have a few problems that I would like to bring to attention because there are really a few areas within the company's policy / website that could use some serious updating.

1) The Air China app makes it impossible for anyone without a +86 phone number to register/check in. I also never got a Phoenix Mile confirmation e-mail when I initially registered for it so I can't even log in even if I wanted to. I had to phone Air China to get the number and it still wouldn't help me log in to either App or website.

2) The website is extremely buggy and if you try to check your booking details, no matter what combination of information is put in, the web site displays an error message.

3) I know you can't check in up until about a day before your departing flight, but if you do try to do so, there is no message stating that you cannot. It just throws up another error message. It doesn't set the customer at ease if it feels like the flight doesn't exist.

4) When I finally was able to check in, the website was extremely slow and unresponsive, no matter what browser/device I tried it on. I'm not sure how fast the uplink speed is from the Air China servers, but this is appallingly slow. When I hit the NEXT button during the process, I'd have to wait upwards of 2 minutes for a response. This happened on both check-ins, a month apart.

5) I had two flights to get to Tokyo. London to Beijing and Beijing to Tokyo. When I tried to check in (even when I was withing the correct timeframe for both flights), I could only check in and select seats for the first leg of the flight. The other flight didn't even show up on the booking. So I had to go to Heathrow earlier than anticipated because I was scared that my second flight wasn't there. Even calling customer service didn't help and it cost me GPB £11.00 for a short phone call which is highly unfair especially when I was panicking that I may not have a second flight. When I got to Heathrow I was able to secure a seat on the second flight. I asked for a window seat, and in stead I got the seat that is directly in front of the emergency exit with my arm right by the flight attendant jumpseat. This is not a window seat. If there wasn't any available, the helpdesk staff should have told me, but according to them, I got a window seat. Bare in mind this seat doesn't recline either because of the emergency pathway behind it. So I had an uncomfortable 4 hour flight to Tokyo.

6) The same thing happened when I tried to check in for my flights back to London (Tokyo - Beijing - London); I couldn't select a seat for the second leg of the journey. I had to go to Haneda airport early and make sure that they can secure me a seat of my choice. Don't see what the point of checking in online is with Air China if I always have to go to the airport to check in all over again just so you can make sure they take you into account for the second leg of a journey.

7) The in-flight entertainment systems are not formatting videos and films correctly for the screen size. The screen sizes are most certainly a recent upgrade to a 16:9 high resolution aspect ratio and I can understand that older programming is still formatted to be in the 4:3 square ratio, but even the newest films like 'Finding Dory' as an example, was still pillarboxed and letterboxed on the screen and was in SD resolution. What's the point of having higher definition 16:9 screens if most of the content isn't even optimised for it? It's as if Air China ordered a film from the supplier and they just gave a standard SD 4:3 film without thinking about the plane's specs. It's unwatchable. I didn't use the entertainment system at all when I realised this because it just spoils the experience for me. And it might sound nitpicky, but some people choose their Airlines based on the in-flight entertainment quality. So it needs to be taken seriously. In-flight entertainment is usually bad enough, so this just made it even worse.

8) My BIGGEST problem is the policy on electronics when the flight has reached cruising altitude. I understand that all electronics must be switched off during taxi, take-off and landing and this is standard across the entire aviation realm. However I think the policies on certain electronics being used at cruising altitude is HIGHLY and embarrassingly outdated. When I was watching a film on my iPhone (with flight mode turned on) during my 11 hour flight from Beijing back to London (flight CA937), I was told by the attendant that I had to turn my phone off immediately. I tried to reason with her and that I didn't understand why but she insisted that I turn it off. What is mind boggling is that most leading airlines have allowed its customers to use their phones at cruising altitude for YEARS. Some airlines also supply Wi-Fi and some even supply a GSM mobile phone signal! So for me to not even be allowed to have a phone on in flight mode is absurd. I know that some companies do still enforce this policy though and I won't argue with policy. BUT, this is where it gets interesting. After I was told to turn my phone off, I could see, ALL AROUND ME, that people were watching content on their laptops, iPads, reading their Kindles, listening to music through wireless Bluetooth headphones, playing games on their hand-held consoles and videoing on GoPro cameras. But NONE of those people were told to turn their devices off. Meanwile, those devices have almost all of the same connecting capabilities as a mobile phone, if not ALL the same capabilities. A laptop can connect with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, a Kindle can connect to Wi-Fi, an iPad can connect to 3G/4G, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, a console can connect to Wi-Fi, some GoPro cameras have Wi-Fi/wireless capabilities - the list goes on and on.

How is it that they were allowed to keep using their devices but a mobile cellphone wasn't allowed? I looked at the security leaflet in the pocket of the seat and it was severely outdated with policy and even pictures. It showed rules stating no electronics for take off and landing (understandable) and then for cruising altitude, mobile phones (ones that look like Nokias), portable TVs and boomboxes weren't allowed. But with no rules against laptops and other unmentioned devices. It's as if the staff are following an extremely outdated policy on electronics and are doing it by-the-book as opposed to using common sense. Why is it that a mobile phone in 2016 isn't allowed to be turned on in a plane (even in flight mode) but all other wireless-capable electronics are allowed? This is highly unfair and I feel like the rule should either be ALL allowed or NOTHING AT ALL allowed (even though the latter is ridiculous in this day and age). So I had to sit there for a remaining 8 hours of the flight doing absolutely nothing because I couldn't sleep and the in-flight entertainment was unwatchable. I had a terrible flight experience and couldn't even begin to plead with the flight attendant because her English was not fluent. I don't have a problem with limited English on an Air China flight but it just meant that I wasn't able to voice my concern.

I would really appreciate if the company would be able to address these issues and take them seriously. I frequently fly with numerous airlines and I have to say, Air China's website, app and in-flight policies are tremendously faulty/buggy and outdated. I cannot believe a Star Alliance group member can perform this poorly in the most obvious of places.

We booked our flights to Australia with Airchina. During the booking process, the website was playing up (database error), so had to call their call centre.
Non-UK number, but still the call was 100% free. Spoke to 2 different customer service advisors, and both of them were very helpful and friendly.

I had a flight that goes from Hong Kong to London, with a connection in Beijing. I called three times to ask if I can simply get on the plane at Beijing. I knew that new passengers do get on at Beijing because when I went from London to Hong Kong with a stopover in Beijing on Air China, the London to Beijing plane was significantly larger. However, every time I called I was quoted a ridiculous £230 to change the flight, simply to get on at Beijing, with no other options. Therefore I would never fly Air China in the future.