Review of China Eastern flight Xi'an Beijing in Economy

Airline China Eastern
Flight MU2115
Class Economy
Seat 49L
Aircraft Airbus A320
Flight time 02:00
Take-off 18 Jul 16, 18:15
Arrival at 18 Jul 16, 20:15
MU 173 reviews
BobbieD
By 699
Published on 24th September 2016
Welcome to this, the forth and first of my return trip to Beijing and Xi'an, China! This report takes us from Xi'an back to Beijing with China Eastern. The outbound flights and full itinerary can be found below:

MAN-AMS KL1082 - see here
AMS-PEK CZ346 - see here
PEK-XIY MU2106 - see here
XIY-PEK MU2115 - this report
PEK-AMS CZ345
AMS-MAN KL1073

First of all a little tourist bonus. I was lucky enough to have a spare couple of hours after arriving in Xi'an on this business trip to have a quick look around the Terracotta Army site just outside of Xi'an.



It's a very impressive site with hundreds of terracotta warriors on display and still many more to be uncovered and restored.

I also travelled into the centre of Xi'an to have a wonder around the night market, with some great local food specialities including these spicy "cold skin noodles" which despite the name are made from tofu.

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Anyway back to the actual report.

It was quite a stressful afternoon all in all. I was due to fly back to PEK for my connection on to AMS at 17:20. but my colleague informed me that he had received a message that our flight had been cancelled (I got no such message from my travel agent or the airline). We had planned to arrive in PEK with plenty of time to change as we had separate bookings for this flight and the long haul flight. We knew we would have to collect our bags and check-in again at PEK and go through security again as well as factor in for possible delays. Now we were panicking that if they couldn't get us onto another flight we would miss our connection and be stranded in China. We tried to get our hotel to call the airline to confirm the cancellation and to get us on the next flight. Unfortunately, the hotel staff didn't seem to understand our request only confirming our flight cancellation. We resigned to the fact that we would have to get to the airport as soon as possible and try to get on the next flight which would still give us chance to meet our connection.

We arrived at the airport by taxi, which took us around an hour from the other side of Xi'an.

The terminal is of the hangar type, with a large open departures area.

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We headed to the China Eastern desk, and the were offered the next flight which was scheduled for 18:15. Phew. We dropped off our bags relatively swiftly.

Now we had some time to kill. There were plenty of places to get food and drinks. The staff in some of them tried to get us into their establishment, but when asking for the menu, the prices were ridiculous - way more than prices even in European airports. We therefore ended up in Starbucks where we at least knew we wouldn't get ripped off.

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There were also some little pods where you could have a nap!

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Having killed an hour or so landside we headed to the security check.

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Some rather large queues for the checks.

Airside there were more shops. I bought a few tacky souvenirs of Xi'an from one of the shops selling all sorts of Xi'an/terracotta warrior nik naks.

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The departure board showing the cancelled flight to PEK at 17:20

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and the new flight at 18:15 from gate H!4

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There was a bit of time for some spotting



I love it that they airport staff cycle around, I don't think I've seen this in the UK.

It was soon time to head to the gate.

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Our aircraft was approaching



The usual chinese scramble for boarding took place.



We were welcomed onboard and took our seats.

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Pretty standard leg room here.

The magazines and safety card were present in the seat pocket.

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The safety information was done on the small over head screens and we were ready to go.



In the air the meal service began.

As previously happened I couldn't manage to get to the meal choice option on the China Eastern website so ended up with a normal (meaty) meal, which I gave away to my colleague.

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I ate the bread and biscuits though!

The rest of the flight passed without excitment and we arrived in Beijing on time.

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Verdict

China Eastern

4.8/10
Cabin7.0
Cabin crew6.0
Entertainment/wifi4.0
Meal/catering2.0

Xi'an - XIY

7.0/10
Efficiency7.0
Access6.0
Services7.0
Cleanliness8.0

Beijing - PEK

7.5/10
Efficiency7.0
Access8.0
Services7.0
Cleanliness8.0

Conclusion

A stressful day of worrying if I would catch my connection due to the cancellation turned out fine in the end. But information from the airline was non existent - they really need to cater for people who don't speak chinese.

The airport is modern and everything worked fine. Just be careful about the cafes and their prices landside!

The actual flight was fine. The meal looked fine, but as I couldn't eat it I marked them down.

Information on the route Xi'an (XIY) Beijing (PEK)

Les contributeurs de Flight-Report ont posté 6 avis concernant 3 compagnies sur la ligne Xi'an (XIY) → Beijing (PEK).


Useful

La compagnie qui obtient la meilleure moyenne est Shandong Airlines avec 8.0/10.

La durée moyenne des vols est de 1 heures et 53 minutes.

  More information

4 Comments

If you liked this review or if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to post a comment below !
  • Comment 367968 by
    Scott05 570 Comments
    Thank you for this nice report and the tourist bonus!
    What is it with you and cancelled flights? It seems strangely familiar ;)
    Hopefully one of you got informed of the cancelation, and you had a long connection at PEK enabling you to catch your long haul flight anyway. Bad handling from the airline...
    I've seen those mini shops dragged around by employees before, namely in Frankfurt and Vienna, for Bretzels and these sort of snacks, however they never seemed to be very successful at actually selling them.
    Nice to get a new plane with Sharklets, although China Eastern's new livery is the most unimaginative ever made. Why even bother with a logo on the tail?
    Good catering, and you got to eat the snacks which is equivalent to what you would have been served on a short flight in Europe anyway :)
    • Comment 367973 by
      BobbieD AUTHOR 93 Comments
      Thanks for the comments.

      All the cancelled flights makes like interesting! Although one day I will end up stuck somewhere...

      The livery is pretty boring, maybe they ran out of paint :P

      That's true I got the same amount of food as I would have on a european short haul flight so not too bad.

  • Comment 368332 by
    KL651 TEAM 4534 Comments
    Thanks for this FR.
    Customer information for non chinese speaker is really problematic it seems.
    Good there was a flight a few minutes later, but an automatic rebook should have been done before you got the airoport.
    • Comment 368334 by
      BobbieD AUTHOR 93 Comments
      Yes I was lucky that there are many flights a day between Xi'an and Beijing.

      Maybe they had rebooked me automatically, but I received no information and it didn't seem that when when I spoke to the airline at the airport.

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