Yes. It's a Typical Chinese Airline. Does the job. Don't expect too much. Chinese airports are a dog's breakfast.
yes, I flew economy to Vancouver with them a few years ago. As astro said, its a very basic airline, seats and food were alright. transiting through Shanghai airport was a real challenge though make sure you have at least 90 mins for your connecting flight. and before the flight lands they switch off the in flight entertainment and do callisthenics for half an hour to "promote health and vitality"
https://www.airlinequality.com/airline-reviews/china-eastern-airlines/ https://www.airlineratings.com/ratings/china-eastern/
Be careful with which city you’re transiting through China. Some Chinese airports which have direct China Eastern flights to Australia do not have an international transit lounge and do not have visa free transit. At least, this was the case twelve months ago. We learnt this the hard way by being denied boarding at check in. China Eastern’s customer service was atrocious. They tried to remedy the problem by offering to sell us a full price ticket, via another airport, which was more expensive than flying home earlier and quicker with Singapore Airlines. We flew home via Singapore which was a joy.
I bit the bullet and booked next Christmas’s flight on China Eastern using QF points, wife refused to try and with our daughter wanted to leave a day earlier so they are on Cathay using QF points as well. I hope I won’t regret it... I unfortunately have an eight and a half hour layover in Shanghai, do you think I could train it in to the centre and back again?
You need to get a visa (which, last I looked was a couple of hundred). The nearest you can get on the maglev is about half way in.
It is actually 144 hours now. https://www.travelchinaguide.com/tour/visa/free-transit-144-hours.htm Confirmed this with the Visa centre - I'm flying China Eastern on my MEL-Pudong-Furano trip soon. I'm in Shanghai for 90 or so hours, jumped through all the hoops to get my visa, only to be told it was unnecessary. Going to get a friend to write me up a card asking for directions to the 144hr visa-free counter, so I can flash it once I debark.
One I'm a bit concerned about is whether I need to inform China Eastern about my double ski bag or not - and who do I inform? Conflicting advice online about it. I know it'll be allowed under their sporting equipment rules, but some pages say it's pending approval and you should call (but no number to call).
Azzski, I have a flight with China Eastern from Sapporo to China coming up and have a 190cm ski bag. Did they charge you any extra fees? Did you end up calling to notify? Cheers
I tried to, but after ten minutes on hold waiting for an English-speaking person I gave up. Did not seem to matter. I was not charged for any leg for my 200cm ski bag - according to their regs, as long as the bag isn't over 23kgs you should be fine. You can probably save a few minutes on check-in by having a note that says "this bag contains snow skis", because waiting for them to translate that question about your bag to English can get a little tiresome My review of China Eastern was it's not a bad airline, but they do cram you in.
I too have bitten the bullet and acquired a flight to Sapporo on China Eastern. Can't say I'm looking forward to all the sniffing. I'm assuming you can check your bags right through to Sapporo from Melbourne without having to collect in Shanghai and re-check in. Correct?
I had a stopover of a few days in Shanghai on the way over, but that was definitely the case on the return leg. On checking in, the counter used a phone app to ask me if it was a ski bag - took quite some time. As I mentioned, if you can get a mandarin-speaking friend to write you a note saying "this bag contains snow skis" you can probably save yourself a bunch of time on check-in
Just visited Shangai for 36 hours to attend a company cocktail party. Flew in from Hong Kong one day and flew out the next evening on China Eastern back to Brisbane. The 144 hour transit visa was fine, albeit the small immigration queue does move very slow. a Queue of 15 pax took 45 mins. China Eastern on the way home??? Well I slept up the front from take off to landing - so can't comment on the food or service... Interior was pretty worn out though...
Yeah, their immigration definitely operates under the "if you're not Chinese, you can wait" customer service plan. I waited about 2 hours, was caught up with an American school band of around 70 students (who were pissing off the Chinese staff because they didn't understand the concept of being quiet, and the teachers were the worst offenders). On that 144-hr visa, definitely have your hotel booking details handy on paper, preferably getting that friendly Chinese-speaker to translate the hotel address for you as well.
Flew Syd> Shanghai> Chicago and back again business class a couple of months back using China Eastern. Totally recommend it. Their 777's were new enough, but the best part is that you fly direct into the US, with no need to go through the hell that is switching to a US domestic flight at one of the shitty US airports. I usually fly Qantas to LA/Dallas and then on to the east, but you always arrive feeling crap because of the US connections and crappy airlines. Even if it's a decent internal flight you still arrive feeling exhausted because of that leg. We just got on the plane in Shanghai and woke up in Chicago feeling great. Will never fly Qantas into the US again, unless it is a direct flight.
I suppose it depends which airport you transit through in the US.... My last 3 fights flights from Japan to Texas, were via Minneapolis. I've only flown in via Delta, but when you arrive to transit to domestic, you do security then immigration, and once you collect your bags and pass through customs, you go through the doors, and walk 10m to do your domestic bag drop(you already have domestic boarding pass, and it's already tagged to your final destination), then exit where BOTH domestic and international flights depart. The flight before last, my international arrivals gate into the terminal was right next to my domestic departures gate. They have 50 shops & at least a dozen eating options... you can even use an App to get food delivered to you boarding gate!! It's actually a pleasure to transit through there.
You could do this with Air NZ via Auckland to Chicago too... and soon you'll be able to do it to NYC.
The reality is that most kiwis haven't been flying to the UK via LAX for sometime (it's like 7% of London bound kiwi passengers). Because that transit sucks. If Air NZ did London via Houston, San Francisco or Vancouver then it'd probably compete a bit more with Asian/Middle Eastern routes. Or they could bring back their Hong Kong - London Route.
