China Airlines

I flew SYD-TPE-AMS and v.v. in economy class recently.

When I booked I thought this would be a budget-like airline with older planes and less than impressive entertainment purely based on the rates that were consistently cheaper than those of other carriers.

When boarding the (very new) A350 I realized that my expectations were misguided, the plane was great with plenty of leg room (second only to Korean Air where leg room is nothing short of amazing), a tremendous choice in in flight entertainment and some very friendly flight attendants.

While I have read in numerous reviews the seats are thin - and I agree they are - I didn’t find it uncomfortable and neither did it stop me from sleeping ..... a bit (I cannot sleep on a plane easily).

The only thing that needs some improvement in my opinion is the food. While it’s hardly ever awesome in a plane ( well unless you fly Business class perhaps which I never do) I wouldn’t have known it was an omelette I was eating if they wouldn’t have told me....... and noodles or rice for breakfast is just not for me. But this is the only area in which some other carriers might perform better and considering the difference in price with those..... I’ll accept being explained what I’m eating for breakfast rather than being able to taste it.

On another note, access to Taipei and Taichung from the Taipei airport is very good and it’s easy to do a quick trip if you have a lengthy stopover (approx 2 hours after I landed I was in Taichung some 180km south of the airport courtesy of the very impressive public transport system in Taiwan)...... I will be back!

To China Airlines,

I will go straight to the facts. I had had an extremely bad experience with China Airlines, and request some answers from them.

We bought tickets mid February for return tickets : Hong Kong – Taiwan (flight CI 922).
At check-in, the morning of the flight, the stewardess [name removed] simply told us that we couldn’t take our flight.
Besides generating a huge frustration feeling before our holidays even start, the fact that she didn’t propose any solution or even look for solution is simply astonishing.

So the reason she gave us is that our names on the booking didn’t match our passports.
To be precise, our First Name was correct, and our Family Name was also correct.
BUT, she told me that we had to put all our middle names as well with our First Names. Apparently, this is a change in the policy that was pushed before, but she was not able to tell us how recently.
And as we did not put our middle names, our tickets were unusable, we couldn’t take the plane. Everything else was correct : passport number, dates, etc.
No solution proposed, no real help, nothing…
Oh wait, actually yes, she proposed us a solution : buy new tickets, obviously !

In my country, the middle names are absolutely never used.
Moreover, every time I didn’t put our middle names in the booking, all the companies let us go on the plane.
But China Airlines only decided not to.

So I tried to find a solution, any action we could do to amend it.
Of course, modifying the booking online by myself was prohibited by China Airlines website.
I went back on the website to check the display of the booking page, and where this rule is written.
So actually there is now a mention in brackets to put middle names (which I don’t remember to see last time, anyway).
However, there are only 2 boxes called “Last Name” and “First Name”. If you require middle names too, add a dedicated box, it is clearer.
On top of that, my first name contains an hyphen, but the website does not accept it. Moreover, I have commas between my middle names, but as the website does not accept special characters neither, how to input them ?
Finally, where there is a change in policy, you should make it more obvious !
The technical limitations of the website make everything even more confusing.

So at the counter I asked her to amend our booking; not possible neither. How come ??
Wait, actually, yes, she could modify the booking, but ONLY 3 LETTERS… What ? yes, 3 letters.
So she managed to amend our son’s booking as the middle name was only 3 letters long (of course, with a fee), but not ours…
What of a rule is this ?
So actually, China Airlines CAN amend booking. Technically and regulatory, it is possible(I presume China airlines will use some kind of dark regulation to explain that only 3 letters can be changed for security purposes…)
They just didn’t for us.

So we finally bought new tickets, with fees, more expensive of course.
I made reimbursement request for the old ones, and of course, no answer yet.
And I don’t expect any. Better have customers paying twice and not losing money, right China airlines ?

At Taipei counter, I told China Airlines staff my story, and ask them if they could amend our names, they replied “yes it should be possible to amend”, “hum, I don’t understand why they told you that in Hong Kong, I am not sure why”…

So, please, China Airlines, take care of your customers. Try to provide some help. Try to find solutions. Try to answer our requests.
And please, take care of our opinion.
I will continue to send this email on social networks as well as on private channels as long as I don’t get a satisfying answer.

Thank you for your consideration.

We checked in at sydney. I arrived at checkin stressed and left reassured. nicole who I believe was from menzies aviation did an absolutely brilliant job. thank you Nicole, you've represented are inaugural China airlines flight ver well.

I was a first time flyer with China Airlines from Brisbane-Taipei-Gatwick return travelling premium economy and was extremely surprised at the very professional staff from the check in process to the wonderful in flight service. Our flight was over 24 hours in total one way and we found all facets of the flight very good, amount of food served extremely sufficient, entertainment offered was first class with latest released movies offered. We were extremely impressed by the cleanliness of the plane during the flight. Would certainly travel with a China Airlines again.

SYD-TPE-KIX-TPE-SYD, Business Class. Excellent comfort in the new A350 on SYD-TPE-SYD. Arriving in TPE at 0430 on an extended transit with nothing open, including China Airlines Business Lounge was not a lot of fun.

Flew Sydney to Taipei - Taipei to Ho Chi Minh and then a return flight to Sydney a week later.
At first comprehensive, but I can now say it was an A++ experience. Everything from flight to in-cabin customer experience was exceptional. So much better than the established. I
I would for sure recommend China Airlines. My family and I will be more than happy to fly with China Airlines in the future.

Well done.

Regards,
Son

Very Unfriendly on Weight for Business Class

We are first time travel on this Airline on Business Class which was recommended by Flight Center. It was really suck!!!
We booked our Round the World all on Business Class, of course, a lot of shopping which resulted overweight for check in Luggage of 9 kg per person.
The Check in Customers service insisted us to pay for the 9 kg fees and later I had spoken to a friendly Supervisor but not much HELP. She manage to get us extra 1kg free only per person.
We have no choice, open up luggage, throw away 8kg of stuff per person to made them happy but not US.
What the Business Class Airline? Pay Triple fares? Have given us such a services.
We should have stick to our Singapore Kris Flyer may have avoided all these.
China Airlines are too straight to Business Class, moreover, we are travelling Round the World.
Never for us to Travel Again on CHINA AIRLINE.

Flew with them for a few times. Was ok. Except that they lost my luggage with my last flight. Said they will find it in 24 hours and call me back. 48 hours passed no one called me and no one answer the phone for the last 20 hours I try to call them... Wrote an email still no reply... I still hope they will find my bag and give 3 stars.

Value for money! Overall does not compare to US airlines or Arab airlines. Would recommend if you can get a discounted flight

I am a frequent flyer in the region and prefer to fly China Airlines if it is convenient. I usually fly business class SYD - TPE - YVR and have also flown to regional cities. In general the planes are brand new and the A350 have outstanding seat pods with lie flat seats. But they are rock hard and no mattress pad is available.

Service is also very good. FA are friendly and helpful AND the cabin and toilets are kept clean throughout the flight.

The problems:
The website is almost unusable, slow and unstable - their app is much much better.

The food. It is very poor quality and the choices are odd. Dinner is often served when it should be breakfast served. The western choices for "dinner" can be appropriate (meat and 2 veg) or half breakfast and half dinner (croissant served with pasta). Croissant served with pasta is also served as a breakfast. At first I thought someone had loaded the wrong food but this happens every flight. The Asian menu options are better but also very poor quality.

The wine list is very very basic and should be better. There is a decent selection of spirits and they serve Nespresso which is a huge plus.

Overall much much better than mainland airlines but nowhere near Cathay or Singapore.

We flew Sydney to Hanoi return with China Airline as their price was really good compared to others. The cheaper price made us worried about the quality of the flight but we shouldn't have, it was nothing wrong; cabin quite new & service good. We booked our tickets via China Airline own's website, it was easy & simple.

We flew SYD-FRA via TPE and back. There's nothing I can really complain about. Sure, the food wasn't best but when and with what airline (in economy) has this ever been?
The service was good, there were always flight attendants around, Taipei Airport is lovely to change flights - not as big as e.g. Hongkong, Singapur or Abu Dhabi so it was easy and stress free although we only had 1.5 hours to change on our way back.
5 hours after booking the flight we got rescheduled - but only the TPE-SYD flight back a day earlier. Which didn't make much sense given that at that time we were supposed to fly out of FR. But a quick call to the travel agent fixed everything and we got a flight out of FRA also a day earlier (I didn't mind and told the travel agent that we were flexibel).
Overall I'd book again with them as everything turned out smooth and stress-free

Checkin requires your credit card to prove your purchase.

A long delay due to a potential aircraft problem, but it took forever(by the time I typed the review, it has been 2 hours) The crew seemed to have no ideas about what they are doing.

Pricy airline with terrible service. Don't waste your money.

The cabin crew were awesome! Wonderful service. Aircrafts were nice. I also enjoyed the catering. The transit in Taipei was a little rushed, however, it was due to a minimum connection.

Booked my tickets 2 1/2 months before my travel date and was contacted 3 weeks before I was due to leave through Expedia saying that there had been a change in my itinerary. My returning flight from SFO-TPE-SIN now had an 8-hr layover instead of a 2-hr layover because China Airlines was no longer operating the flight that I had previously selected. Despite my many calls to Expedia to mediate this with China Airlines over 1 1/2 weeks, no appropriate options were given. China Airlines would give me a full refund, but not reimburse me for the higher ticket fares that I would incur since I would be booking just 3 weeks before my date.

After exhausting every option I had, I had no choice but to accept the 8-hr layover in TPE. I even asked for use of their Business Lounge or an upgrade for the inconvenience they caused me, but was refused by the airlines. Inability to provide any suitable options makes me regret that I ever chose China Airlines. This was going to be my first time traveling with them, and because of this frustrating situation, its left me NOT EVER wanting to choose China Airlines or its affiliates.

Poor customer service and unwillingness to satisfy the paying customer

I have called China Airlines baggage line over 20 times, left over 10 messages, and I have talked to 7 representatives. All 7 have told me something different. Most say that they will have my luggage sent to me, yet it still has not arrived. Today's representative told me that they have no record that I have ever even called and my luggage was shipped out to storage/disposal because it was considered abandoned! I am given no direct line to call, no email I can write to, and no point person to talk to. I am told I can only call the 1-866 baggage line. I call and I call and I call. I try contacting them on facebook. I try tweeting. Nothing works. It gets me no where. This airline is more unorganized, incompetent, and difficult to work with than any ever organization I have ever worked with.

Flight was OK, but to navigate their website is almost impossible. I have earned frequent flier points that are about to expire. I was trying to find what to do with them - it is just impossible. Wasted 1 hour.

I was booked to fly Brisbane to Taipei but the flight was cancelled, and I had to fly from Sydney to Taipei, but China Airlines provided me with a free flight to Sydney to catch the flight, but on Economy, when my flights were in Business Class.

Business Class fare from Brisbane to Taipei to Frankfurt was much less expensive than with other carriers. Very good cabin service, but when I rang the call button for another glass of white wine, the flight attendant told me, "We have no more of that wine," and showed me the empty bottle as proof! Why then did she not procure a bottle of it from First Class??

Taipei Business Lounge, where I spent about ten hours, had delicious Taiwanese food, including freshly cooked noodles to order, and plenty of alcohol.

Would certainly fly with them again.

Pretty much ruined my holiday, as I had food poisoning due to the bad food and could not get off the toilet

I was hoping it was a one off, but not to be. On the way home to Sydney, I felt even more upset, but I was too sick to do anything about it and wanted to get home to the toilet asap, but now I am also vomiting. I would not recommend this airline to anyone. Anyone that gives it a positive review did not eat the provided food
Everything normal
Food

Surprised by how new and comfortable the plane was. Personal TV with good selection of movies. Food good. Would fly again and recommend.
Seats, in flight entertainment, on time.