China Eastern Airlines (MU) Reviews?

[jinjin]

Hi,

I'm flying to the states and I am considering taking China Eastern Airlines (MU) or United (UA). The UA flight is $140USD more expensive and I change in O'hare (I hate changing in O'Hare!). The MU flight takes me to Shanghai to transfer. I don't have my itinerary yet so I'm not sure how long the lay over is with MU (I'm using a travel agent), but was wondering if anyone has any experience with MU?

Do you think it's worth the extra $140 to fly United? (I guess I would get mileage too).

What's the service like with MU? are my bags going to get lost in Shanghai? (my bags always get lost in O'Hare but it will at least be in a U.S. state lost by a U.S. airline...I'd hate to be in nyc and trying to get my bags from shanghai)...

anyway, any thoughts would be greatly appreciated!

[chow0]

Hello,

Information about airline quality with reviews from customers can be found on the website of skytrax: www.airlinequality.com

For China Eastern airlines: www.airlinequality.com/Forum/c_eastrn.htm

[skylee]

I've flown MU many times between Hong Kong and Shanghai. IMHO it is not too bad but not too good either. Once my brother had a big problem getting a seat on a boxing day despite his full-fare ticket and reconfirmation so I had to make a scene to get him the seat. Usually I would choose Dragonair for its service if the prices are about the same.

HK to Shanghai takes less than 3 hours so my experience may not be very useful.

[imron]

I've flown with China Eastern a couple of times. For cheap flights it's hard to beat, but in some respects you get what you pay for. Most of the planes are older models, so you'll not get TV sets in the back of the seats, and the movies they show are usually well out of date. If you're not too fussed about inflight entertainment then it's fine.

As for baggage loss, when I flew to Australia (from Beijing) I had to going through border/custom control in Shanghai, meaning that the flight to Shanghai was a domestic flight and I then had to pick up my bags and then go through check-in and everything again (although they do have a slightly streamlined process for those coming in from domestic flights, so you don't have to leave the quarantined area). There was no option to just check everything through from Beijing.

[pandaxiongmao]

My experience has varied wildly with MU. I have traveled with them many times, mostly between Japan and different cities in China. I have also used them for domestic Chinese flights and Kunming-HK. The planes seem to be relatively clean. I have always gotten friendly service, but I have also seen them treat Japanese passengers like crap simply because they were Japanese.

As far as baggage goes, I have often been well over their 20kg limit for economy class, but have never had to pay for overweight baggage.

Their timeliness is really hit-and-miss. One time I arrived at my destination one day late because my flight from Japan was delayed over 4 hours, causing me to miss my connection in Shanghai. However, they did put me up in a hotel, pay for all my meals, and pay for my phone calls to modify my arrangements.

If given the choice, from my own experiences, I'd choose them over Air China and China Southern. I can't compare to United since I haven't flown any US carriers in years. Nor have I flown from China to the USA. But from what I've heard, US carriers don't have particularly good service or standards nowadays.

Getting miles on United only matters if you will earn enough to use them for something before they expire.

[jbray]

I flew about a year ago from Chengdu, to Shanghai, to LA. Unfortunetly, my bags stayed in Shanghai. Other than the lost bags, the flight was really comfortable.

My wife was still in China, and had to call many times to get the bags back. For a while, they denied that they had them. Then it turned in to a face thing. United Airlines (my connecting flight in LA) kept calling them as well, and they would never call back. After 2 weeks I got my bags.

[HedgePig]

I've made several flights between the US and China over the last year, always buying the cheapest ticket. I haven't used China Eastern on this route before although I have flown them on other international routes. I don't think that there's much of a differences in cattle-class. Neither United nor China Eastern were very good but they weren't terrible either.

[sunnymarky]

I am flying China Eastern from Shanghai-Bangkok soon , first time. I hope they are ok on this route

[jinjin]

thanks for the replies! I found a direct flight on Air China for $10 more (travel agent added wrong so I got it for 500rmb cheaper and I refused to pay the difference--why should I?) Anyway, I'm hoping it is okay, but you're right, cattle-seats are probably all the same anyway. I'm hoping Air China is okay...I thought the travel agent said China Airlines (which I heard was okay) but it wasn't until I got my ticket did I realize it was Air China.

I flew United from the States to PK. Ok, 2 hour delay, changed terminals in O'Hare due to problem with plane, and pretty uneventful.

I do have to say that it is annoying that they don't wake you up for the meals or save your meal. Obviously, I slept through dinner and I'm stuck on a plane so I can't just go grab a bite somehwere else. You know I'm probably going to eventually wake up...and want to eat...why not save my little cardboard boxed meal somewhere instead of telling me I slept through dinner and too bad?!

[pandaxiongmao]

China Airlines flies to Taiwan, not mainland China.

Air China is the mainland Chinese one, doesn't fly to Taiwan...

[Ascendancy9]

I've only flown China Eastern from Beijing to Jinan and Jinan to Shanghai. No baggage problems, the service was fine and the seats were comfortable for those short journeys.

[Yang Rui]

Do you think it's worth the extra $140 to fly United?

I've never flown China Eastern, but one thing i would say is that I would willingly pay anything NOT to have to fly United. Once upon a time, I too thought cattle-class was all pretty much the same. But that was until I flew United from San Francisco to London. I've never been on a less comfortable flight. The amount of leg room and seat quality was what i would expect on a short hop on a budget airline. For a longhaul flight it was awful.

I guess they might use different planes on the China-US routes, but i would definitely say United are not worth paying extra for.

[Oceans9]

If you like horrific service and your flight to never leave on time, this is the airline for you.

I recently flew to Beijing from Hangzhou on China Eastern and it was a disaster. After having our 7PM flight delayed for two hours, the passengers on the flight were annoyed. But when we were told that our flight would not be able to leave for an additional two hours (ie – four hours late) people started to become angry as they had family waiting for them or were concerned about not being able to find taxis to take them home or to hotels (our flight was expected to arrive at about 1AM if we left at 11PM). In addition, as this is Spring Festival, there were a number of people who were traveling with small children who were getting pretty tired, so this additional travel time just added to their stress level.

After finding out that we would leave about 4 hours late, some customers demanded that the airline offer some sort of compensation. The airline at first just sent some flunky, who had no power to deal with the situation and was only able to offer the lame excuse that the plane was in Hong Kong and wouldn’t be able to arrive for a few hours, to deal with the growing mob of angry passengers. When people were not satisfied with this response, the company sent another, older guy who stated the same thing. He also said that if passengers wanted some sort of compensation for the airline’s screw-up, they would have to file a lawsuit against the company and seek some sort of compensation through the court system.

The attitude of the company employees was very telling: they acted like this was just some big joke and that the passengers were over-reacting. Their complete lack of empathy made things much worse than they could have been.

Then, things started to become much more interesting: when the flight was supposed to board (at about 10:30PM), the passengers refused to do so until the company responded properly to their complaints. It was moving to see and hear everyone shouting down the boarding announcement, while cheering and clapping loudly when not a single passenger (out of a few hundred) boarded the plane.

So, what did China Eastern Airlines do in response to this? Acting like classless, unprofessional bone heads, and while sticking with the same line that the company would do nothing to address passengers’ concerns, the company sent other employees down to the terminal who were to act like passengers to spy on the real customers and find out what they were saying. Seriously! I know that sounds crazy but there were at least two employees who were just walking around and listening to what the passengers were talking about. One jerk (who resembled Cro-Magnon Man and was clearly was suffering from a Napoleonic complex) actually got into an argument with a few passengers and then started a shoving match. He even went so far as to knock over a passenger who was videotaping what was going on. When the airport security arrived to find out what was going on, they just joked around with the guy who had just assaulted a few customers and then let him go. The company even went so far as to send a much older man down to escort the jerk away from the passengers who were clearly very angry now.

After about an additional hour or so, and when it was made repeatedly clear that China Eastern just didn’t care at all that the company had screwed up badly first in not having a plane available for Beijing-bound customers and then in allowing one of its employees to assault its customers, the passengers eventually had no choice but to board the flight or stay in Hangzhou overnight. The flight eventually arrived at about 3AM.

This isn’t the first time I’ve had a problem like this with China Eastern, but it is the worst by far. I think that the company’s business plan involves using the classic ‘bait-and-switch’: sell tickets for a flight that people would like to take (like a 7PM flight, or, in this case, ‘the bait’) but don’t have a plane available at that time. Instead, make these suckers wait till a plane is available and force them to fly at that time (like at 11PM, which in this case is ‘the switch’).

Please, don’t let what happened to me happen to you, too: next time you’re shopping for a flight, don’t fly China Eastern!