Air China Reviews 

The booking system is terrible. I can't use any cards for payment as it stated card is not supported even though it says visa/Mastercard are fine. It costed me extra to pay via PayPal. After paying, I don't get any confirmation email for my booking. Tried to call the centre, no one answers my phone.

I thought the flight attendants were not very friendly and the food situation was appalling!
Apparently you are meant to tell them in advance if you want a ‘special meal’ (being vegetarian counts as a special meal somehow!) - but I couldn’t contact them as I only had data and could not make phone calls whilst I was away.
I emailed them to explain and as if they could make a note of my request but they just said to phone even though I couldn’t… so when it came to the meals being served on the plane, I asked for a vegetarian meal and they only made chicken or beef! So basically on a 10hr flight I ate some dry crackers, and like 2 pieces of fruit and the yogurt was horrible! So so bad. They should really have vegetarian meals on board as a standard - come on people it’s 2026 there are lots of vegetarians now!
Very disappointing considering I spent a lot of money on the flight:(

Customer service experience and website was horrible. My flight was cancelled and I was unable to reach them, for weeks, eventually someone called me once and offered me a flight two days later. In the end I requested a refund and was given a refund for flight only and not for the bag. The website is so so glitchy and the customer service is poor response time and no way to communicate with them. There is a big improvement required. I would not feel comfortable purchasing again.

Last night, I attempted to purchase tickets through their website. The booking process on their website was so unreliable that I had to enter my details multiple times. In the end, I did not receive any tickets yet Air China charged me twice.

When I called to ask about the status of the booking in the morning, I spoke with Carrie from the Beijing office. She told me the tickets had been cancelled and that I would need to rebook on the website and dispute the charges with my bank. She said there was “nothing else I can do” in a manner that felt unapologetic and dismissive. At no point did she acknowledge the inconvenience or show empathy for the situation.

Only after I asked to speak with a manager and provide feedback did Carrie return to the call and say she had spoken with Finance, could generate the tickets, and could help process the refund. Why was this assistance not offered when I first explained the problem? Why was it only offered when I had to escalate the matter to receive meaningful help?

Overall it was an extremely frustrating booking experience, compounded by disappointing after-sales service. I would not book directly with Air China ever again.

I have flown with China Southern and several times on Shenzhen Air which was the best I thought. I booked my flight with an online travel agency so I didn't have problems with online check in etc. Checking in was easy at Gatwick, there were lots of people flying to Beijing. Originally my flight had been to Chengdu but it was cancelled two weeks before so I was forced to change rail journeys etc.
Boarding was easy, the cabin was beautiful and clean. Near me there were three strange English men who had a hidden bottle of spirits by their chair. I expected an Easyjet Ibiza flight situation. If you fly on Air China on a very cheap ticket, a side effect is it will attract drunken people on the way to Thailand. The staff dealt with them well, I just thought they chose the wrong flight to misbehave on heading to authoritarian China. But they fell asleep.
The first meal was terrible, overcooked rice with a strange unknown meat with unusual colour. The airline obviously didn't pay enough per head for that meal. There were 2 choices of meal and a limited choice of drinks. I didn't find anything interesting on entertainment system. I tried to watch Chinese movies with subtitles and they were OK. No headphones were supplied. The flight passed quickly and the second meal was much better. Landing in Beijing was soft. I arrived starving due to being unable to eat the first meal and there wasn't quite enough. Spoiled by a few misbehaving young men behaving very strangely, I think at least one had mental problems. But it was a cheap flight and all's well that ends well. One meal was one of the worst airline meals I've ever had, the staff were all very pleasant. If there's one thing you'd expect to be good it woykd be rice on Air China but it was not good.
After a very long 12 hour wait in Beijing Capitol airport, I took another Air China flight to Philipines which was nearly full. Everything went well and the food was delicious, only the London supplier was at fault

Awful company. Impossible to contact any customer services from the UK. Cancelled my flight with no warning and still am yet to receive a refund. I strongly urge you to never book anything with them

They cancelled my flight then offered another with not enough time for onward connection. No one answering help line. No reply to 6 email requests DO NOT BOOK ON AIR CHINA FLIGHT
Ref 25880702854
24/10 - I’ve just spent 1 and quarter hours on the phone with Kishan from a call centre in India he tells me he’s awaiting your approval for my change of flight - can you approve it please ????????

Absolutely appalling experience. I cancelled my ticket and tried to request a refund for four prepaid seat reservations worth €170, but Air China’s website simply wouldn’t let me submit the request.

I emailed them and called customer support, only to spend nearly an hour listening to the same music and automated announcements without speaking to a single person.

Technical issues can happen, but leaving customers without any effective way to resolve them is unacceptable. I would think twice before booking with Air China again.

This pathetic company should be shut down.
They suddenly moved my flight a day earlier, but the connecting flight remained at the original time, leaving me with a 27-hour wait in Beijing. I called them a hundred times and sent several emails, but I didn't get a single response. My entire vacation in Thailand turned into a nightmare because of this shitty company!

Would give 0 stars if I could. Extremely disappointing experience with Air China

I would strongly recommend thinking twice before booking with Air China.

One of the biggest issues is the ridiculous baggage policy. You are unable to purchase additional baggage in advance, leaving you with essentially no choice but to deal with it at the airport. Once you arrive, you are then charged an extremely high amount for your luggage — in our case, around £200 on top of the cost of the ticket.

It is incredibly frustrating to be charged this much for something you would happily have paid for in advance, particularly when Air China gives you no reasonable alternative to do so. It feels less like a genuine baggage policy and more like passengers are being forced into paying an extortionate fee because they have no other option.

Even more frustratingly, if one of your bags is slightly over the weight allowance while another bag has spare capacity, you aren’t simply allowed to redistribute the weight between the two bags. Instead, you are expected to step aside, open your luggage and physically take items out of one bag and put them into the other. It is a completely unnecessary and frankly silly way of handling the situation.

People travel for holidays, which are supposed to be positive and happy occasions, but you also don’t know what someone might be dealing with when they travel — perhaps they are travelling for an important family event, dealing with a bereavement, or simply already feeling stressed about their journey. The last thing anyone needs is to be made to unpack and rearrange their belongings at an airport because of an inflexible baggage policy, particularly when there is clearly allowance within another checked bag.

Unfortunately, the experience at the airport made things even worse. The staff we dealt with were rude, unhelpful and unfriendly, which made an already stressful situation unnecessarily unpleasant. There was very little willingness to help or explain the situation, despite the fact that we were simply trying to understand our options.

Overall, the whole experience has been incredibly disappointing. Poor communication, an inflexible baggage policy, extortionate additional charges and unhelpful customer service — not what you expect when you’ve already paid a significant amount for a flight.

I certainly won’t be rushing to fly with Air China again, and I would advise other passengers to be extremely careful about the baggage allowance and potential additional costs before booking.

I've taken AirChina 3 times now and I am pleased with their service and the airline. They have been very consistent with my experience, team are nice and helpful. Not a money like the other airlines I've come across

Unfortunately my flight was cancelled.
But the refund process runs excellent. Within 2 days my money was back on my credit card.

we have sent numerous e mail to air china support but not one reply all we require is a no show certivacate from them as we could not fly back on the date we gad booked because of the death of my mother just nothing very frustrating no one to help us.
irmina laws.

Is easily the worst airline I have flown with, such rude unreasonable staff. I took a small instrument with me that fit comfortably in the cabin compartment on my flight to China (I called to check this was okay), on the return I was told it was not okay with no workaround possible 😡, there is no effort to reason they just double down on thier frail ego once they have made up thier mind

Flew CGK-PEK. After buying your ticket, you can't use the website to check your booking or check in online which is very frustrating.

Check-in at the airport was slow but i guess it is because of China requirements. Ground staff and flight attendants were professional and spoke decent English. The food was not good, I wish they had given us Chinese food instead of disgusting porridge.

Flight attendant cant speek english, as well es the captain, food is okay, no screens, no leg-space, at least 10 illness-related annoucements during the flight
Unable to Check in online

We have flown from London to Beijing twice on Air China and both times the experience has been fantastic. The staff are great and attentive plus when my headrest was found to be broken they bumped me up to a seat with extra legroom for free. The noodles for breakfast were delicious too!!!

I had a very bad experience flying Air China from London to Hanoi. During the flight, my backpack had to be stored several rows away because the overhead bin above my seat was full. Later, I discovered that money had been stolen from my belongings. This left me with the impression that there may be a modus operandi of theft happening during flights. It was extremely disappointing and made me feel unsafe. I cannot recommend Air China after such an experience.

I booked my flight 8 months in advance for me and my boyfriend and when we got to the check-in desk they gave us separate seats on a 10 hours intercontinental flight. I asked if we could seat together and the answer was that the flight was full. Also, they don’t speak English very well and had a hard time understanding. Honestly this is the first time this happens to me on an international flight and I’m very disappointed.

why would anyone want to spend their money going to a country where there are no animal protection laws, search for Wang Wang