In economy the difference isn’t big anymore.. seats are the same and food isn’t much difference either. Just drink selection maybe. But on that front eva air or China airlines way better…
Compared to Lufthansa, KLM or whatever from Europe or budget airlines I really prefer air China. They still have the better seats due to a bit older less cramped planes…
The worst is Air India… decided to never ever fly with them again except if it’s direct and I won’t ever touch there food anymore… ryanair is pure luxury in comparison to that shit show of broken seats, foods giving you diarrhea, and the most horrid experience ever if you miss your connection. Oh and most of their mid haul flights being unable to do IFR out of Delhi so stranded during winter smog for hours many days each week. That’s if the plane doesn’t crash….
What keeps me away from Air China mostly is the fact that they’re a Chinese carrier and I don’t want to transit through China carrying my work laptop and Taiwanese papers… So if other carries offer flights at similar prices, I’ll keep avoiding them. They would need to offer a really good deal to convince me otherwise.
I’ve heard that a few times… They also seem to have issues regarding safety.
The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) has raised alarm about numerous safety lapses by Air India, discovered during surprise aircraft inspections at European airports, said people aware of the developments.
The ratio of findings per inspection in Air India’s planes reached 1.96 in January following which the Cologne-based agency flagged the concern with India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), which subsequently intensified scrutiny of the Tata Group-owned carrier.
Remember when some fool complained about us “tourists” having an opinion about the US elections? Not surprisingly, voting for the Dumpster had turned out to be bad for everyone.
I remember a good few years back when my brother’s company used to fly people from Manchester to London and back via Dublin as it was significantly cheaper than the Train, it was quiet a popular route for a bit.
The high oil prices already result in some flight cancellations:
International flights to and from Taiwan will decline by an average of 52.6 per week in May, roughly 1.7 percent of those originally scheduled, due to surging global fuel prices, according to data from the Civil Aviation Administration (CAA).
April is currently averaging 7.3 canceled flights from this schedule per week, accounting for approximately 0.2 percent of the total, Wan said.
Cancellations will increase to 52.6 flights per week in May, and drop to one per week in July and August, the lawmaker said.
Purely anecdotal - but I’ve just received notice that my flight back from IST to TPE (Turkish Airlines TK124) in June was cancelled “due to force majeure/operational reasons”.
Not difficult to rebook to another flight, but airlines are definitely canceling some of their flights to and from Taiwan…
TPE is packed today, PACKED! Flying out to LHR, 6am to check in in the priority line had to wait 15 mins (I know, first world premium problems, but have never had to wait like this before at the priority line).
Do you have an APEC card? Or how can one use the priority lane?
I was told not even flying business does qualify one to use it…
They won’t say give an exact reason; but Turkish Airlines seems to be more affected by rising kerosene prices than other airlines because they apparently haven’t pre-bought as much jet fuel as other airlines.
And they’re operating two flights per day between IST and TPE (on some days of the week); so I can see why they’d cancel one of them on low utilization.
Only TW nationals with ID can be recommended by either a company or industry association to get an APEC card, which is not as trivial as it seems. Besides TW, all the economies of APEC must approve the application before the card is issued.
My wife has one (well she travels a whole lot more than me), it took like 5 months once to get it
