Review of China Eastern flight from Amsterdam to Shanghai in Economy

Introduction

As my current employer only provides me with four guaranteed weeks off per year and those have to be requested before the 31st of March 2024 for the same year, I kindly requested three weeks of guaranteed off for November & December 2024 as I try my best to avoid to travel in high seasons due to price & amount of tourists,

As my dates were confirmed in April by them, I found a cheap fare with China Eastern in July 2024 for a one-way flight to Tokyo Haneda via Shanghai for a total price of 500 EUR (+/- 526 USD). Upon confirming with my wife whether she was interested by going to Japan, I quickly booked us a seat on those flights. Flight times were decent with only 2.5 hours of stopover time in Shanghai Pudong.

The entirety of the trip will be revealed per itinerary.

Positioning ourselves to Amsterdam

Amsterdam Airport is about a 45 minute drive from our home and it would take about 70 minutes or so for us to be travelling to Amsterdam by train. As I usually prefer to park my car at the Airport as it is usually the most reliable and practicable solution for us, we decided today to proceed to Amsterdam's Airport by train as we would be returning home via a different airport.

We decided to catch our train to the airport around 16:00 (4 PM) to reach Amsterdam Airport with about 2 hours and 40 minutes prior to our flight to Shanghai. Luckily for us the train was still very quiet and the amount of our luggage did not cause any bother to other passengers.

Amsterdam Airport Schiphol

As planned we reached the airport with about 2 hours and 40 minutes to spare and moved up to the departure hall. Unlike some other Skyteam partners flying via Amsterdam, China Eastern's check-in was actually done by KLM staff in terminal 2.

Checking in online was unfortunately not possible and I was also unable to check in via one of those self check-in counter as it didn't allow me to go through after filing our flying blue number. The system told us to go to one of the staffed counters.

KLM does promote you to use the self-service check-in counter though, but upon informing one of the ground attendants that I was unable to do so, she let me through and directed us to row 14. Row 14 wasn't overly busy, but it took us about 20 minutes or so to be checked in as there were quite a few passengers traveling with more than one hold luggage and some of them needed a few documents to be verified.

Security and passport control on the other hand was very deserted and quiet and took us about five minutes to clear.

Aspire Lounge No. 41

While I do have access to Privium's lounge at Amsterdam, I decided not to go there as my wife would not be allowed to go in. Though Aspire Lounge does give me access for two persons via my priority pass. The non-schengen Aspire Lounge was recently refurbished and opened up about two months ago. It is definitely an improvement comparing it to the Schengen's version, though the lounge for me is very basic with just a very few options of beverages and meals. It however was nicely decorated for christmas and does offer plenty of seating for the size of the lounge.

We found a seat new the window and the lounge does offer some good views over the apron inbetween Pier D & E, unfortunately the apron was quite deserted with just a few parked KLM 737's & a single 737 of Transavia Holland.

The choice of beverage is somewhat limited ranging from soft drinks to liquor. Tea/Coffee & Juices were obviously also available.

Some fruit, crisps, muffins & brownies were also available.

A tiny salad bar.

Some breads.

The hot options for today were either to have a soup based on a red curry or have some white rice with some yellow vegetarian curry. While choices were very limited, chooising the Asian cuisine as choice for today's option did make sense as the majority of non-schengen destination that were departing in the next few hours were bound for Asian destinations, though the dishes would by far not make the cut for any michelin star nor justify the Asian kitchen ;).

Sausage rolls, cheesy bites & curry chicken bites.

Some butter, cheese and chicken filet were also available in case you didn't want to dip your bread into the soup or just take some nuts and olives to go with your drink.

Given that I wasn't overly hungry and expected to have some food on board, I decided to grab us some wine and some white rice with curry and chicken bites. Nothing was impressive nor of high standard.

Another angle of the lounge, which wasn't overly lounge and could become crowded very quickly so now and then, though we were quite lucky that it wasn't overly busy at the time we were departing. My father who travelled a month earlier told me that there was a waiting list of about 90 minutes to get into the lounge when he was traveling around the same time, so I guess it could be somewhat of a hit or miss.

Back to the gate

We decided to leave the lounge about ten minutes prior to our scheduled boarding time as my wife wanted to buy some perfume before we were actually boarding our flight. After being her personal assistant for a solid 15 minutes by holding several perfume sticks, we finally made it our way to our gate in the E-pier.

Hello B-2005.

This 9.9 year old Boeing 777-300ER (at time of flying) of China Eastern was going to bring us over to Shanghai. This bird was newly delivered to China Eastern in december 2014 and can carry up to 316 passengers in a configuration of 6 First Class Seats, 52 Business Class Seats & 258 Economy Class Seats.

While the livery of China Eastern is somewhat simple and basic, I kind of like it. Though I wonder how their product upholds on their 777 compared to their A330, which I took in 2017 on the same route when I was connecting via Shanghai to Bangkok.

By the time we arrived to our gate, boarding was already in process and went in an orderly manner. Even though it went in an orderly manner, the pace was slow as a lot of people were required to go to the counter for what I assume was a reshuffle of their seat and not all passengers understanding that they actually needed to scan their QR code on their boarding pass rather than just putting the paper down on the machine.

China Eastern's 777 Cabin

Upon entering the cabin, we had to stroll through business class to reach our seats in economy, but in the photo below you can find the seat China Eastern is using for their J class in their 777-300ER. Flight attendants were friendly, yet very active and dedicated to get all carry on luggage in the correct overhead bins.

Eventually found our way to the seat which was alright in the legroom department, though less than usual comparing them to most Asian legacy carriers. 

A blanket and a pillow were awaiting you on your seat, though the blanket was quite minimal in the thickness department.

The IFE system was of an okay size and was able to be used by both remote or touchscreen, however I didn't find any earphones near my seat nor upon entering the cabin. Flight attendants did not hand out any earphones either, so I'm not sure whether one had to ask for them or that they do not hand them out. (Same was for the 2nd flight).

The aircraft was only equipped with a reading light and a call-to-flight attendant button. I could have used an individual airvent though as the cabin was extremely warm upon entering and did not cool down until engines were finally running.

The table of our seat was quite sturdy and clean and was also foldable to reduce the size when one only had a drink.

Literature in the seat pockets contained of the airline's magazine, trash bag & a safety card for the correct aircraft.

Flight attendants came by to hand us a wet wipe.

And the view of my window with no single aircraft parked next to us. Amsterdam was really deserted around 8 pm.

The Flight

With a very long delay of a single minute, we were pushing back a minute past our scheduled departure time with a short ride to RWY 24 for our departure to Shanghai.

About 18 minutes past our scheduled departure we were rolling for our departure to Shanghai with a left turn towards a north-easterly direction to head to China via Russian airspace giving us a beautiful view over Amsterdam's Airport.

As I was waiting for the service to start, I decided to scroll through China Eastern's IFE. The movie and series section was very limited with little choice for any international movies or series. In the gallery below you can see how little the choices were for series, though movies weren't particularly better if one did not speak Chinese. It's barely enough to see you through an eleven hour flight, so be sure to bring your own entertainment.

So in the end I ended up only using the map to know about our location, altitude and speed.

So to continue with the seat. If one did not opt to use the table and ordered a drink, a cupholder was retractable. It was somehow tricky to not mess it up once the seat in front of you was reclined as space becomes limited.

A view of the cabin while food was about to be distributed about 90 minutes into the flight. Not a lot of people opted to use their IFE as I guess most did not receive any earphones.

By the time the flight attendants were serving our row, no choice was given anymore as they ran out of the other option (beef), so I was served the meal containing chicken.

Starter: Salad of Pickles
Main: White Rice with Chicken in a Sweet&Sour sauce with Veggies
Sides: Mix of Fruits, Breadroll with Butter, Salted Nuts & a Stroopwafel (A Dutch syrupwafel)

While the food wasn't really enjoyable, I found the chicken in the main meal to be moist and tender. A choice of beverage was also somewhat limited as they only served a limited amount of soft drinks, coffee/tea or juice. Alcoholic beverages were of no choice, however I saw some flight attendants serving some beers throughout the night, so I assume that they only serve them when food is not being served for some reason.

Flight attendants came by about 30 to 40 minutes later to clean our tables and asking whether we would like some more coffee or tea. I opted for a cup of coffee and asked for some milk, yet I received both a creamer and sugar.

After meal service and with a very limited in-flight entertainment, I decided to get some sleep and woke up about six hours later when we were well into Russian Airspace and about an hour of two away from Chinese Airspace.

Trying to take a quick peek without disturbing my fellow passenger.

About three hours to landing, I decided to pay a visit to one of the lavatories and I must admit that it was maintained pretty well by flight attendants as it did not reek nor did it look dirty.

With a select few amenities available such as a handlotion and some soap. Sanitary bags were also available in the upper compartment in case you needed to throw somethings away that was better closed. 

The sink was also clean!

I love those ornaments.

China.

About 90 minutes to landing, flight attendants came by to serve us our second meal, which was a choice between pork and rice or eggs. Knowing that I'm not a massive fan of scrambled eggs and they tend to be even worse for me on airplanes, I opted for the Pork & Rice, which was quite tasty, yet a tad too sweet for my taste.

Starter: Fruit Salad, Natural Yoghurt & Croissant with Strawberry Jam
Main: Sweet & Spicy Minced Pork with White Rice & Bok Choy
Dessert: Apple Lemon Cake

Once again the choice of beverage was limited to juices, soft drinks and tea or coffee, so I just opted for an orange juice.

My wife chose the other option which got the same side dishes, yet the main meal consisted of scrambled eggs with a chicken sausage and a hashbrown below the scrambled eggs. All I can say is that she did not like the meal at all.

About 40 minutes to landing, flight attendants came by to clean up and I was not asked whether I wanted a coffee or tea unlike the passengers in front of me. The flight attendant just started to stop asking whether we wanted to have any drink starting from the row in front of me to the aft of the aircraft.

Lining up for Runway 35L

Touchdown was very smooth and about 32 minutes ahead of schedule!

It took us about 14 minutes to get from our runway to our designated gate parking next to a Boeing 787 of Japan Airlines who was about to push back for it's flight to Tokyo. It took quite a while to get to our gate as we were holding short of Runway 35R for quite a while.

Disembarkation followed soon after and I will continue the next flight report from here :)

Thanks for stopping by!