China Eastern Flight review Bangkok London Gatwick March 17th....The good the bad

[Chivas]

I had originally come to Thailand in October 2023 with the intention of staying through to end of March 2024 but two months into the trip fatigue exhausation too much sun and everything inbetween forced a rethink

 

I had originally flown one way in on Etihad last at £374 with a 60 day Evisa.......out of interest Etihad didnt even bother to open the printed Evisa lol let alone show any interest in a one way ticket......very fortunately and on an aside somehow I managed to get upgraded to Business on both sectors. I was dressed smartly and travelling alone I assume the only reason on overbooked flight

 

Fast forward to Christmas and I've had enough and buy a return ticket on Christmas day on Singapore airlines at just £589 returned January 17th just gone (best carrier by country mile I have ever been on period)

 

I was one day over on the visa leaving Xmas day (IO wrote words in Thai "one days grace no issue" and obviously no fine

 

Any way back to China Eastern.....had come in on another SETV which was due to expire March 17th......I was thinking of extending trip into April but I'm thinking Songkran at which point I'm thinking lets get home

 

Went on my favourite agent site Travel Trolley for one way and I've got Eva and Thai both in the £500's Etihad at around £460 and right at the top of the pile is China Eastern at..............£212 lol

 

Thinking this could be an error fare switch to Travel Supermarket and to my surprise find its not with a whole list of agents starting with Crystal Travel at just £198 up to about £240....China Eastern themselves were £221

 

Check real "airtime" which was absolutely no different to using Singapore Malaysia Cathay out of BKK back to London so no issue...transit just 1 hour 25. All good

 

Check what motors are in use and 737-800 to Pudong Shanghai....ouch single aisle with a plane full of and I'll be polite Chinese lol but main leg is on my favourite long haul motor A330 so called by me as with only 8 seats across in economy half the seats available will be aisle...result

 

Despite being cheaper deals available I plump for my decades long use of Travel Trolley at £212.......I need not have even checked but immediate acknowledgment and 22 minutes later Eticket lands.....those guys are ace

 

Love those guys

 

Fast forward to online check in ......now things go awry lol.......its "finding" me within CE's system but not allowing me to proceed to check in.......glitch I think come back later.nope still the same

 

Never one to panic I find the Bangkok Office number and Airport office number of CE (sorry we are closed till Monday lol)

 

I find China Easterns Twitter page and message....no response lol

I find China Easterns FB page and message....no response lol

 

I'm thinking let me whack an overnight email off to Travel Trolley knowing how responsive they are......their office opens 9am on the Saturday. At 09.22 Email back saying absolutely nothing to worry about but China Eastern are one of only a handful of airlines where you can only check in online if ticket bought from airline itself

 

Fair enough and for first time ever an extremely minor positive for booking direct  !

 

Get to Swampy well early and am literally first in the queue.......opens up and I'm getting asked questions about the usual sharps lithium batteries (I had assumed within checked bag) etc etc

 

Boarding cards issued....2 aisles all good

 

Go to immigration.....EMPTY. Baggage scans and immigration (its about 3.30pm afternoon).......from walking away from check in to clearing immigration less than 5 minutes !

 

China Eastern use Shanghai Airlines to codeshare up to Pudong Shanghai......absolutely full. No individual screens. No seat power. Food pretty shight but I'll eat anything so no big deal...bang on time

 

Arrive into Pudong into what I expected would be a seething cauldron of noise (its about midnight) to be met by utter silence.....its morbid......around 8 or 9 of us are wondering where the hell to go for connections. I get barked at when I object to stickers being placed all over me but think better of it......theres NO "obvious" route or someone to ask where the hell we are going. No english at all......someone spots large red arrow on floor which says connections (theres literally no one to ask)

 

If I had been a female travelling alone I would have been slightly frightened.....eventually find our way to bag scans again (just 9 of us where connecting to Gatwick) where the fun and games start

 

We've all done it so grin and bear it stay silent grit your teeth until...........first guy goes through "POWER PACK" screams the 2 searching ....yes he says.....Confisicated"   NEXT lol 😁

 

Everyone had their power packs confiscated no arguements no pack drill even my genuienly very small one was off to the chop squad

 

As you can imagine many were arguing lol......every bag was tipped out literally into a tray lol

 

Anyway on to main leg....8 across as expected. I'm in 2nd to back row centre section and as is entirely predictable the middle seat to my left is empty.

 

No Avod boxes underneath and better still none of those stupid footrests......33" seat pitch great stuff......this one has individual screens but very little showing so just put on moving map....had USB port for power but not electrical........2 hours into flight I popped 2 of Gods little helpers and woke up with 4 hours to run...result

 

Departed to the minute and landed 2 minutes eatly at Gatwick......food was much improved. Very polite flight crew......didnt see booze on trolleys as they came around but didnt ask anyway

 

I'd say 90% Chinese on flight give or take.......Gatwick was deserted. Immigration deserted. Bags came within 5 minutes.....very good and efficient all around

 

China Eastern have 3 a day into London 2 to Heathrow one to Gatwick......

 

Value for money I would be hard pressed to give them less than 10/10....period (the same seats were available 2 days before flight still at only £279)

 

Overall rating...I'll give them 5/10

 

Marked down 1 because of the single aisle Bangkok Pudong

Marked down 1 because of an absolute shightshow at Pudong somewhat intimidating

 

Would I fly them again.....an absolute resounding YES !

 

Great value all round !

 

 

Edited March 19 by Chivas

[Denim]

Thanks for that. We'll worth considering. I'll try to find out from my agent how much a return ticket to London is from BKK. I'd rather share with a planeful of Chinese than a planeful of Brit mongers any day of the week.

[Chivas]

Just now, Denim said:

Thanks for that. We'll worth considering. I'll try to find out from my agent how much a return ticket to London is from BKK. I'd rather share with a planeful of Chinese than a planeful of Brit mongers any day of the week.

 

Have to say overall they were well behaved...no real issue at all very quiet onboard

[Nick Carter icp]

I flew Sheena Eastern a few weeks ago , Gatwick to CM with a Shang hai stop over .

509 Quid return flight , although the flight could be gotton for about 450 if booked further in advance 

Edited March 19 by Nick Carter icp

[Chivas]

Just now, Nick Carter icp said:

I flew Sheena Eastern a few weeks ago , Gatwick to CM with a Shang Mai stop over .

509 Quid return flight , although the flight could be gotton for about 450 if booked further in advance 

yep no issue on pricing clearly

[Nick Carter icp]

35 minutes ago, Chivas said:

 

Have to say overall they were well behaved...no real issue at all very quiet onboard

 

   Another positive is that as Sheena Eastern are not a national airline , the staff weren't so formal , more relaxed and chilled out

[Chetzee]

1 hour ago, Chivas said:

 

Have to say overall they were well behaved...no real issue at all very quiet onboard

try it in late September when the new intake of Uni students are flying to UK ..... noisy pandemonium ... I did it once out of Pudong 2 weeks after 9/11 .....   At check i'm thinking this is going to be a shocker ..... then out of the blue got upgraded to 1st ... which id never experienced before or since ...  I was pretty much poured off the plane after propping up the Bar for most of the flight and downing 3 bottle of Pouilly-Fumé ... ... mind you my single ticket had just cost £600 , as I was determined not to fly back via Pakistan when id been just before 9/11 ...

Edited March 19 by Chetzee

[Denim]

54 minutes ago, Nick Carter icp said:

I flew Sheena Eastern a few weeks ago , Gatwick to CM with a Shang hai stop over .

 

Would it cost more to make it a 2 night stop over ?

[Nick Carter icp]

1 hour ago, Denim said:

 

Would it cost more to make it a 2 night stop over ?

 

  That was a stop over in Shanghai .

I was going from London to Shanghai to Chiang Mai then to Chiang Rai .

Cheaper tickets don't seem to be able to do stop overs or open returns , so you would have to get two one ways 

Saying that , some of the stop overs were 32 hour stop overs 

[rexpotter]

Nice novel, but where was the bad?

[Chivas]

1 hour ago, rexpotter said:

Nice novel, but where was the bad?

 

Point taken. I think I've underplayed how pretty shight awful Pudong was as an experience

Unpleasant but 95% would take it in its stride I guess

 

One lady kept close to me who was clearly nervous and she asked me twice If I knew where I was going. I answered yes even though I wasnt exactly sure we were lol

 

[Chivas]

Forget to add the final part

 

I got tugged at Customs lol

 

Asked where I'd been answered politely no place for saracsm. All the usual questions with me grabbing checked bag key but he waved it away anyway

 

One question stood out......"How much cash are you carrying and is it more than £1000"

 

Polite response of zero Sterling and 11.000 in Thai baht to which I immediately said less than £300

 

On your way Sir..... I said casually rare for me to get stopped and his answer was unusual......pointing at my hand luggage leather style briefcase he said "because of style of that bag"

 

Most unusual I thought.... Notwithstanding didnt look in either not that there was anything there shouldnt have been anyway

[Enoon]

1 hour ago, rexpotter said:

Nice novel, but where was the bad?

 

https://www.airlineratings.com/airline-ratings/?l=C

[Chivas]

3 minutes ago, Enoon said:

 

https://www.airlineratings.com/airline-ratings/?l=C

 

Hellfire

 

Over 300 long and short haul aircraft in the fleet !

[treetops]

How many hours travel from LGW to BKK?   That's a big thing for many.

[Chivas]

5 hours ago, treetops said:

How many hours travel from LGW to BKK?   That's a big thing for many.

 

It was 3.30 up to Pudong and 12.20 to Gatwick total 15 hours 50 miniutes

 

Transit was nominal  in fact with the messing around trying to find where we going plus the idiocy at bag scanners the flight had already boarded for 2nd sector and was waiting for the sole connecting flight (ours)......10 minutes after boarding we were away

 

The actual air time was less than Singapore on Christmas day with the hop to Changi plus the even longer leg to Heathrow

 

Having done Cathay and Malaysia I know the same applies if you route that way

 

I totally acknowledge its a long air time nonetheless

[Chivas]

Look at it another way. I'm not poor but comparing fares to Eva and Thai I was "effectively" paid £100 and hour for 3 hours for sitting on that flight compared to having paid the £520 ish on Thai or Eva

[Irons]

Great information many thanks.

[Hanuman2547]

I flew China Eastern out of LAX back around 2017.  Worse flight and airline ever.  Ok, the price was why I took a chance.  It was $558rtn.  Left LAX on time and arrived Shanghai.  Short wait for the connection and then boarded.  Flight was taking an hour.  Ok, I go back to sleep.  Wake up about five hours later..............and we are still on the ground in the plane.  Finally after sitting on the plane for seven hours we leave after a slight "mechanical" issue was resolved.  No food or water served that I know of during that time.  Once the flight was airborne they give us some type of sack lunch.  Very crappy it was.  Arrive in Bangkok much later than expected.  Go to baggage claim and wait for bags......and wait some more.....and wait some more.  Finally, the belt stops and that's it.  Have to go file forms for bags not delivered.  I then get a taxi and take it to my house.  The next day they contact me and tell me that the bags will be delivered.  That afternoon a broken down looking truck arrives and has my bag.  That's great, where's the other one?  Oops, no have.  Can't blame them as it looks like it got subcontracted out.  Call China eastern and explain to them I'm still missing a bag.  They tell me they will check and call me back.  Two hours later they call.  They tell me that the bag will be on the next flight.  Bag shows up the next day.  Everything was there, nothing missing.  So yes, I won't ever be taking that airline again.  

[Chivas]

20 minutes ago, Hanuman2547 said:

I flew China Eastern out of LAX back around 2017.  Worse flight and airline ever.  Ok, the price was why I took a chance.  It was $558rtn.  Left LAX on time and arrived Shanghai.  Short wait for the connection and then boarded.  Flight was taking an hour.  Ok, I go back to sleep.  Wake up about five hours later..............and we are still on the ground in the plane.  Finally after sitting on the plane for seven hours we leave after a slight "mechanical" issue was resolved.  No food or water served that I know of during that time.  Once the flight was airborne they give us some type of sack lunch.  Very crappy it was.  Arrive in Bangkok much later than expected.  Go to baggage claim and wait for bags......and wait some more.....and wait some more.  Finally, the belt stops and that's it.  Have to go file forms for bags not delivered.  I then get a taxi and take it to my house.  The next day they contact me and tell me that the bags will be delivered.  That afternoon a broken down looking truck arrives and has my bag.  That's great, where's the other one?  Oops, no have.  Can't blame them as it looks like it got subcontracted out.  Call China eastern and explain to them I'm still missing a bag.  They tell me they will check and call me back.  Two hours later they call.  They tell me that the bag will be on the next flight.  Bag shows up the next day.  Everything was there, nothing missing.  So yes, I won't ever be taking that airline again.  

 

Experience differs for us all no matter what airline we fly

Have to say having added the 3 most recent carriers to my total list of London Bkk (or reverse) now at 29 different airlines I've never had a very bad experience that springs to mind with any

 

It might be argued that Tarom lost an aircraft with all onboard in 94/95 that I had been aboard just a week before but it would be churlish to include it

[Chivas]

Out of interest referring back to my OP China Eastern never did respond to my Twitter and FB messenger requests close on 4 weeks ago

 

Thank christ for having an agent on the ball

[cormanr7]

On 3/19/2024 at 6:54 PM, Chivas said:

 

Hellfire

 

Over 300 long and short haul aircraft in the fleet !

 

Talking about China Eastern? You are joking right, as of May 03, 2024 they had 623 planes, including 14 parked. This accoring to planespotters.net which is usually quite accurate, though slightly behind the actual numbers. They also have hundreds of aircraft on order including more than 100 COMAC C919 (very similar to the A320NEO).

[Chivas]

1 hour ago, cormanr7 said:

 

Talking about China Eastern? You are joking right, as of May 03, 2024 they had 623 planes, including 14 parked. This accoring to planespotters.net which is usually quite accurate, though slightly behind the actual numbers. They also have hundreds of aircraft on order including more than 100 COMAC C919 (very similar to the A320NEO).

 

Clearly I wasnt joking and had referred to a site which I had assumed was accurate

I agree having double that amount is actually huge