Would you fly on a Chinese airline?

[Forgottenmyphone]

I’ve found some flights and they look too good to be true. It would involve a stopover in Shanghai in both directions. I told my mum and she thinks I’m nuts to consider flying with a Chinese airline. Is she being paranoid or am I being naive?

My son did recently and said the seat pitch was narrower than he is used to in economy so the seat was very uncomfortable for a long haul flight London to China, so that's something to check.

It’s easy to be a bit suspicious but what I read once is: remember if they are international flights going in and out of international airports then the H&S scrutiny is scrupulous and it made me feel better (am a nervous flyer at best of times!)

Have done many times as I used to live in China!

Not sure what your Mum's specific concern is, but the only issue I've ever encountered is that flights out of Shanghai Pudong (PVG) are sometimes subject to delays as military aircraft have presedence over the airspace but as a one-off trip that shouldn't be a huge issue for you. PVG Airport is modern and easy to navigate, if busy.

Thanks for the replies so far. Perhaps I’ll go for it. As for the seat pitch, that’s an interesting one. According to this, it’s no worse (and on some planes actually better) than BA! https://www.airlinequality.com/info/seat-pitch-guide/

I looked into China Southern and China Eastern a few years ago because I fly very long haul often. There prices were good, BUT, often with very long stop over and the review at the time for safety, in flight features, comfort etc were very bad. I believe they have more recently purchased newer planes- which will hopefully improve their safety records.

I'd check the reviews and info on seat guru. You can search and compare each airline, look at certain routes and even check specific seats on specific planes. https://www.seatguru.com/browseairlines

To add, that China Airlines (they have a pink, blossom on their planes/header) are Taiwanese and excellent. We've flew long haul with them- food was delicious. Generally a Sth East Asian option along with a western type option. Staff were lovely, had reasonable English and I thought the service was great.
www.china-airlines.com/uk/en

Looks like you should be fine then. That was his only criticism of the flight and maybe it just felt narrower than normal due to length of flight.

DH has just returned from Shanghai/Hong Kong and he said flights with China Southern great, I have been to China twice - used BA to get there and back but travelled using Chinese airlines for 9 internal flights. Very modern, clean aircraft with clean, up to date and easy to navigate airports. No problem at all

No I won’t. I could have saved thousands by going with a Chinese airline over JAL for my trips to Japan.

For me it’s a no. I won’t go to countries that aren’t democracies and won’t use their state owned airlines. I ruled out a number of well-reviewed Middle Eastern airlines for similar reasons. Chinese airlines are also only so cheap because they are using Russian airspace and therefore paying overflight fees to the Putin regime.

I've flown China Southern and Air China for work. No concerns.

The airline in question is China Eastern and it gets awful reviews for safety. It’s certainly making me think twice.

No i wouldn't and I wouldn't fly with a russian airline either, but then I am a very nervous flyer as it is.

I’ve flown with air china twice and I’ll be flying with them again in October. The tickets are cheap, food was great and so were the staff :)

China eastern has a poor safety record, even compared to other Chinese airlines. Where is your final destination?

Where are you getting your data from? I ask because there are some review sites out there that are not really that objective when it comes to the operational side of things.

As I understand it China Eastern has a few notable incidents up until around 2000, much much better since then. Yes they did lose an aircraft with fatalities about three years back but if you look around the same sadly applies to one or two western airlines.

They are part of the Sky Team alliance which means they’ll be subject to scrutiny from representatives from other airlines in the group and their aircraft and crews will be subject to occasional checks by non-Chinese regulators when the aircraft are on the ground outside China (as @MumofSpud said).

My main gripe ATM is along the lines of that made by @Takoneko , Chinese airlines are one of those still happily using Russian airspace and thereby putting money in Putin’s coffers (navigation/overflight charges).

These days, even airlines with a "poor" safety record are many times safer than the safest airlines in the 1980s, because the planes are so much better. China Eastern flies mostly Airbus, and some Boeing 737-800 (the safest variant of the 737 ever made). China Eastern has had two crashes with fatalities this century, one of which was probably pilot suicide, out of around 15 million flights.

Regarding flying through Shanghai, we found it a doddle (and we were going on to Taiwan, which could have been politically tricky). The transfer people were extremely professional and we had the same person (a) giving us our boarding passes, (b) taking us through the small subset of the Chinese immigration procedure that we had to follow, (c) coming to find us when the baggage scanner detected "batteries" in one of our cases (we put "These are nickel, not lithium, batteries" into a translation app and that was all fine), (d) at the counter by the gate, and (e) at the door of the plane. Yes, it's China, so you have to put a VPN on to get past the Great Firewall to post your socials, but honestly it was one of the smoothest transits we have ever done.