Review of China Eastern flight from Amsterdam to Shanghai in Economy

Introduction

Today I embark on a hastily planned journey, as I found myself with five free days and budget from a group trip that never came to be. I decided to take advantage of the Chinese visa exemption and use those days to pay them a visit.

This report covers the first section of the outbound trip, with Xi'an as the final destination. This trip includes an airport change from PVG to SHA. The experience will be reported in the SHA–XIY section.

I arrive to Schiphol around 3 hours before the scheduled departure time. The train station is right underneath the airport building and has quick connections to most of the Netherlands and some international routes too. Tickets are rather expensive, though.

Departure: AMS

Check-in for China Eastern is done at Departures 2, in an area shared with Air France-KLM and other SkyTeam members. There isn't much queue, and after 15 minutes I have my boarding pass, to PVG only. Fortunately, I am randomly assigned an aisle seat; as the KLM check-in agent is unable to select seats for MU, which should be done at the gate with MU staff.

Afterwards, queuing and security take around 5 minutes, and passport control is very fast but with a 15 minute queue; as the electronic gates are closed.

Today we depart from the E-pier, on the lower floor as it's a non-Schengen flight. The whole non-Schengen zone in Schiphol has plenty of facilities to keep travelers comfortable, with many seating options, charging points and shops around the zone. The E-pier also has an array of seats and couches, as well as tables and benches with European and USB power outlets.

Our aircraft has arrived many hours ago. It is a Boeing 777-300ER of China Eastern Airlines. The livery is rather boring; flat white with the name of the airline in Latin and Chinese characters. Interestingly enough; these are traditional characters, rarely used in mainland China, and they are written right-to-left on the starboard side. The swallowtail logo does look nice.

Before boarding, the crew requires all passengers to go to a desk near the gate to get our documents checked; and our boarding passes stamped if we have sufficient documentation to enter China. Since I have a passport that enjoys visa-free access, this is no trouble at all.

Airline: China Eastern Airlines
Flight: MU772
Model: Boeing 777-300ER
Registration: B-7365 (China)
Age: 8 years

Flight: China Eastern B777-300ER

Boarding starts right on time and takes around 30 minutes. My seat is 38H, an aisle seat on the right of the interior column. There is no space for my cabin bag, so a cabin crew takes it to the Business cabin where there is more space. At least it will travel in style.

The seat is quite comfortable, the fabric and legroom are great (at least for a 171 cm tall person). Recline is quite generous, and moves the bottom forward as well. Padding is alright, but the bottom can get rough after 10 hours in the same position. The headrests can be adjusted vertically and on the sides. The tray table is a bit wobbly, but it can be folded in half and features a cup holder when stowed.

The seat in front has a pocket with a magazine, with some English articles, and sickness bag (no safety card?), plus a net where I store some personal items. A regular pillow with a single-use cover and a soft and light blanket are also provided.

Between each pair of seats there are universal power sockets. They work throughout the flight and are capable of quick charging in compatible devices. Quite useful, since Chinese airlines don't allow the use of powerbanks on aircraft. Overhead, there are individual reading lights but not air vents.

The IFE is rather standard for a cabin from the 2010s, though the screen doesn't "darken" when looked at from the side. The inflight map is an uncontrollable slideshow that rolls through different zoom levels in both English and Chinese. There is a decent movie selection, though primarily of Chinese origin, and before each movie some ads play. There is a tab for "Games" but it is empty.

The offered earphones are alright, when placing noise cancelling headphones over them. The USB port below the screen does not charge my phone.

The safety video is good, showing Chinese attractions and transitioning smoothly to elegant sets where the safety information is displayed. There isn't much to highlight. It plays first in Chinese with Chinese subtitles and sign language, then in English with slightly broken English subtitles. All cabin announcements are done in Chinese and English.

Class: Economy (T)
Includes: 2x meals, 1x cabin bag, 1x checked bag.
Seat: 38H
Price: ~580 € (Multi-city trip)
Ancillaries (this segment only): None.

An hour after takeoff, dinner is served. The options are beef with potato and chicken with rice. As much as I enjoy beef, I choose the more Chinese-sounding option. The tray includes wooden cutlery and the following food:

-Preserved vegetables, which are quite tasty especially when mixed with the bland part of the main.

-Main course, chicken with a brown sauce and preserved black beans. It is very tasty, as everything with preserved black beans is, and not dry at all. The rice is super fluffy, unexpectedly so for an inflight meal. The steamed vegetables on the side are plain and sad, though mixed with the chicken sauce or the preserved vegetable they get a bit of life.

-The fruit includes apple, peach, melon and cantaloupe. It is nice and fresh.

-The bread roll is nice and sweet, good with butter. There is also a bag of salted peanuts. These are all tasty and all, but the experience would be much better if served quickly at the start of the meal service, to be eaten while the rest is served.

-The stroopwafel is normal store-quality stuff. It's alright with the mediocre green tea.

The lavatories between the Economy and Business cabins are divided by a curtain; the smaller lavatories on the inside for Economy and the larger ones on the sides for Business class. The Economy class lavatories are still big enough to use, and remained very clean throughout the flight.

A couple of hours before landing, the second meal service starts. The options are omelette and pork with rice, of which I choose the latter. Again, the cutlery is wooden, which I appreciate.

-The pork is very tasty, the sauce is nice and flavorful and goes well with the ground meat. There seem to be some mushrooms and some red chili in there too. The rice is as good and fluffy as before, and the steamed pakchoy also tastes well.

-The fresh fruit is alright, but the pineapple doesn't really fit the other fruits. It might have been intended to be eaten with the yogurt, but I did not try it.

-The croissant is dense but tastes alright. The cake is great, so delicious and moist.

-I chose orange juice as the drink. It was awful.

The flight was mostly uneventful, with scattered turbulences, and a bigger one over Mongolia. However, the seatbelt lights stayed on throughout the entire flight, and during turbulences the cabin crew broadcasted announcements asking to fasten them.

Route: Amsterdam Airport Schiphol (AMS) – (PVG) Shanghai Pudong International Airport
Great Circle distance: 8930 km
Flight length: N/A
Flight time: 10h 12m
Delay on arrival: -25 minutes (early)

The landing was a bit rough, and an overhead locker opened on impact (the cabin crew rushed and closed it within 5 seconds and nothing fell out). Taxiing took 10 minutes, and I stepped out of the plane 9 minutes later.

Arrival: PVG T1

After leaving the plane, there is a short 5 minute walk to the shuttle stop. The trip also takes less than 5 minutes, after which is immigration control.

First, an arrival form must be filled, as well as the fingerprints recorded on a machine before the queue. If using the visa-free transit program, a second form must be filled, but I have full visa-free access. The queue takes 20 minutes and the passport control only 1, in which quick questions are asked and fingerprints taken once more. From there it's an escalator down to the baggage belts and a brief customs control, all under 5 minutes.

It took me exactly 60 minutes from exiting the aircraft to leaving the terminal through the corridor to the public transportation area. From there, I took the Maglev to central Shanghai, quickly visited the Bund area and then headed to Hongqiao airport for the flight to Xi'an.

Thanks and image credits

Thank you for reading this report! The inter-airport transfer is reported in the next section.
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Photography: Own work
Maps: Google
Flight route: Flightradar24