AirChina is the worst airline EVER.
It has the worst service.
You will be late.
You will miss your connection.
You will be treated like crap.
Their check in counters opened 1 hour prior to our international flight!
Their entertainment system was broken on every leg of my return journey.
All toilets but one clogged 2 hours into a 14 hour flight. 200+ people had access to one toilet for 12 hours.
Spend a little more so that your vacation is not ruined by AIR CHINA!

OK, I won't but I'm sure Wally will want to know if they served free drinks in coach.

I won't fly air china either.

I will only fly US carriers, British Airways, Qantas, Aer Lingus, Virgin, and Luftansa.

Is this the same as China Airlines, or is that a different carrier?

Different carrier. China Airlines is based in Taiwan. Air China is based in mainland China.

Do they have a safety issue?

Air China has had a serious accident or incident since it's split off from CAAC over a decade ago, so it's safe historically.

I did listen to a clip that was posted on airliners.net a few months, which created a long discussion. It was a conversation between a CA flight deck and the JFK ground control about where to taxi, how to pull into gate.

Anyways, the English comprehension is extremely low, even though the JFK tower is also kind of at fault as using some "common English" rather than pure navigation term. The accent from the flight deck was extremely heavy too. It may be common happenings at JFK, but it certainly sounds very dangerous.

Oops!! sorry about that Betty. But I had some positive experiences with them. Which route did you fly, btw?

I meant it HASN'T had an accident.

Some time ago, a 747 was held in Germany for several days while three of the four engines were replaced, because none of them was in safe condition (one was inoperative and held motionless by seatbelts on the fan blades). The paint job of the aircraft (which was not identified) matched that of Air China.

There have been numerous instances of crews being unable to communicate by radio, one of which required that the aircraft be escorted by fighter jets to Canada (on 9/11).

rizzo, interesting list....I'm guessing you haven't flown Aer Lingus in a while!

Anyway, you shouldn't ignore Asian carriers. Air China are one of the more mediocre but airlines like Cathay Pacific and Singapore Airlines (and several others) wipe the floor with EVERY American carrier and frequently are rated higher than the quality European carriers, too.

Well said, cosmic_toadstool. I'm an American living in Asia and I fly SIA often and hope to fly Cathay someday.

The US and European carriers I've flown (and I fly a lot) pale in comparsion, regardless of class of service IMO.

Had a wonderful trip last April to/from Beijing.
Comments are bogus, imhpo.
M