REVIEW: AIR CHINA

Three of our six flights from Perth to Mexico were with Air China – two of which were long haul. Armed with eye masks and neck pillows, we were hoping to snooze through the majority of our 35 airborne hours.

Although all the aircrafts seemed quite similar to us, we travelled on an Airbus from Melbourne through Shanghai to Beijing and on a Boeing 777 on to LA. We experienced a lot of turbulence on all the flights, but the staff were quick to ping on the seatbelt sign – which we had to keep on for the majority of the flight.

We almost missed our connection in Shanghai – seemingly the only English passengers we were told once in English not to move from the gate, but it turned out everyone else had been correctly diverted in Mandarin to the other side of the airport! We had been forgotten about in the middle of an endless corridor, calmly ignorant of the Mandarin announcements requesting our immediate boarding and wondering where all the people were….

A poor Russian girl with limited English naively decided we would be excellent people to latch on to, sadly thus she too nearly missed her flight and was quite unsettled by needing to run through the airport (we have become accustomed to this).

The food on board wasn’t up to much; slimy chicken and soggy noodles served right after take off and immediately before landing, leaving us quite ravenous during the middle of the flight! However, frequent top ups of our Yanjing beer and tepid white wine kept us spritely!

The entertainment was mostly in Chinese, and Charlotte’s entire entertainment system failed from the word go – none of the staff seemed to mind very much though. She luckily found a spare seat and the intermittent Friends episodes were greatly appreciated.

The food and entertainment system was of course tailored to a more Eastern than Western taste – but regardless, we’d happily travel with them again considering the cost and the experience was fine.

Charlotte & Sarah x