Review of Air China flight Houston Beijing in Business

Airline Air China
Flight CA996
Class Business
Seat 11L
Aircraft Boeing 777-300ER
Flight time 14:55
Take-off 29 Dec 14, 00:05
Arrival at 29 Dec 14, 05:00
CA 186 reviews
NGO85
By SILVER 11984
Published on 3rd January 2015
Background:

Thanks for joining me on what is to be the first leg of my return to Nagoya: a TPAC redeye from IAH to PEK. I understand why CA schedules the flight this way, but a 14-hour redeye is physically brutal with two full days book-ending the flight. Since this flight never sees the light of day, my apologies, but there will be a dearth of photography in-flight, but a tourism bonus at the end. The routing is as follows:

Part I – NGO-PEK (CA160, Boeing 737-800, J) – http://flight-report.com/en/report-8827.html
Part II – PEK-IAH (CA995, Boeing 777-300ER, J) – http://flight-report.com/en/report-8935.html
Part III – IAH-PEK (CA996, Boeing 777-300ER, J) – You are here
Part IV – PEK-NGO (CA159, Boeing 737-800, J) – http://flight-report.com/en/report-8962.html

Pre-flight:

No surprise, but there is little traffic on the way to Houston-George Bush Intercontinental Airport on a Sunday night. A brief glimpse of the Houston skyline and Minute-Maid Park from I-69 as we pass through downtown. My parents dropped me off at a quiet Terminal D at 10pm and we have a brief group prayer to the CA gods that I won’t be sharing any hotel rooms with strangers tonight.

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Check-in should have been uneventful, but there is some confusion since my onward flight from PEK is not showing up and I don’t have a Chinese visa to present to them … 2 minutes of clicking later … the agent finally figures out I have a 2.5 day stopover in PEK, but then they looked puzzled again because they think my stopover is more than what is allowed under China’s 72-hour transit visa policy … pen and paper come out and some math is done. Aha! We have an answer! 2.5 days is less than 72 hours, but then they notice I have no return flight from Japan at the end of my itinerary…

I’ll spare you the rest of that discussion (the agent was very friendly and apologetic during this process, but eventually just had to call over the supervisor who was actually a CA employ to get it all sorted out). Since there are only two flights departing tonight from Terminal D, security was a breeze and I was planeside quickly. Here is an aerial shot of the Terminal D check-in area.

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Let’s take a look around the deserted IAH-Terminal D … empty corridors, check; over-the-top Texas gift shop, check; obscure vivaaerobus (IATA: VB) flight to Monterrey, check.

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Unfortunately, the windows at IAH leave much to be desired when it comes to nighttime planespotting. The windows are also populated by an abundant quantity of fake shrubs, so I had to go crawl through the bushes to take these photos of my bird to PEK and an Aeroméxico Connect (IATA: 5D) E-190 that just arrived from Mexico City. According to this departure monitor, there is a little bit of international UA activity tonight, but I didn’t have time to walk over to the other terminals.

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CA uses a contract lounge (the Executive Club) at IAH in Terminal D instead of sending customers to the United Club in Terminals C or E. In addition to the Executive Club (used by CA, EK, LH, QR, SK, and SQ), there are also BA and KLM lounges in Terminal D to accommodate oneworld and SkyTeam passengers. I was welcomed by an extremely friendly dragon. The lounge was pretty empty given it was 11pm, but there was still a bar (complete with bartender) and buffet with limited hot items and your typical assortment of fruits, salads, cookies, snacks, etc. The lounge is symmetric so I took photos of the half that I was on, a good amount of seating areas that were clean/modern and the whole place looked like it was recently renovated. The buffet only had four covers: pulled beef brisket, pulled pork, mashed potatoes, and green beans. Hope you like Texas BBQ! Suspiciously, there was a Texas BBQ restaurant in the terminal, maybe the source of this food? I wasn’t hungry, but grabbed a sampling of beef brisket, mashed potatoes, and green beans to try. The food was good and I would have happily eaten more if I were actually hungry.



———————

Air China, CA996
Equipment: Boeing 777-300ER
Departure: 12:05am (12:14am)
Arrival: 5:00am (4:12am)
Flight time: 13:58

Even though I find boarding one hour early a little strange, the lounge staff made an announcement at 11pm sharp that our flight would be boarding soon and boarding indeed started promptly at 11:05pm. Passengers with special assistance were called first, followed by First/Business/*A Gold/Premium Economy, then Economy. Luckily the windows on the jetbridge were much more photo-friendly so I did get to take a better picture of my plane (B-2037, B777-39LER, delivered April 2013).

photo 14

Only one jetbridge was used tonight so everyone boarded through L2, I arrived at my seat horrified to find a seatmate whose wife and small child (2-3 years old) sat in front of me (these seats were all empty when looking at the seat map at check-in just an hour ago, my strategy was to take the aisle seat and hope no one would want to lose aisle access). Nonetheless, I settled in and took an oshibori on a platter and a glass of champagne and began plotting my escape as I looked at these seasonal greetings from CA on the IFE that looked like they came out of the safety video.

photo 15

A glance around the cabin showed some empty seats, so I politely asked the flight attendant if I could move into an open pair of seats. She told me the flight wasn’t full in J, so she would let me know once boarding finished if something was available. Meanwhile, menus were distributed along with the tea list (aka, drink menu). As the last of the economies trickled in, she came back and told me the entire bulkhead row was open and I could move up there. She moved my carry-ons and helped me get settled in to my newly acquired row. Given, the close proximity to the bar/galley area, I opted for a window seat even though the middle of the three windows was missing. I didn’t see what the F load was on this flight, but J was around 60% and Y was 100%.

photo 16

Due to moving seats, I didn’t have time to take pictures of the insides of the menus before the flight attendant showed up to take my drink, (small) dinner, and (large) dinner orders. For the first dinner, I had the choice of stir-fried pork or four cheese ravioli. I went for the stir-fried pork. For the second dinner, I had the choice of fried fish, Kung pao chicken, the daily special (Mongolian beef), beef tenderloin, or a vegetarian meal. I settled on the daily special. The menus were then slyly removed from my grasp. I have a feeling that they are reused for an entire month given the date/route codes inside the front cover and the daily specials shown for the entire week (Sunday-Saturday).

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The L2 door closed at 11:44pm, but I could see out the window that the ground crew was still completing last minute security checks. So I’ll take the time to introduce the seat a little bit. The seat pitch is good, I’m 182cm and can just touch the cubby with the tips of my toes when sitting down. The cubbies in the bulkhead row are significantly bigger than those in any other row. The window seat cubby is slightly shorter than the aisle seat given the slight stagger of the seats. I do find the placement of the “literature” awkward, especially since they fill this thing to the brim to the point it is beginning to separate from its adhesive. Seat controls are easily accessible and there is an additional control panel inside of the shell that is easier to access when the seat is in the full flat position that provides access to the “upright” position and a secondary reading light. The USB is located next to the IFE screen and the AC power supply is on the front of the console. The CA-branded noise-cancelling headsets come in a case and the audio inlet is located in the cubby next to your head so the cords don’t get in the way of your hands.



Eventually, I feel the tug lock in and we begin our push back giving a glimpse of the UA Terminal C operations before stopping perpendicular to our gate. We head out on our taxi giving a better view of the 5D E-190 that is spending the night before heading back to Mexico City in the morning. I’m on the wrong side of the plane to see the terminals as we taxi, but you can see the ominous glow of Houston’s light pollution in the horizon as we turn onto the runway.



Just south of Dallas, the mood lighting was switched on and we begin the first meal service. An oshibori on a platter, a ramekin of mixed nuts, and a cup of Oolong tea are dropped off and the tablecloth is laid down. About ten minutes later, a tray is brought out containing the full meal service (bread comes around once all the trays are walked out to the cabin). The starter is seared beef served on a bed of lettuce with tomatoes (back left corner). The stir-fried pork had carrots, onions, and peppers with it and was served with white rice. The pork was hard and it looked like an economy meal that made its way from foil to chinaware. A bowl of fruit is in the back right. Overall, this “light” dinner was significantly worse than the “light” lunch I had on the previous leg, maybe just an artifact of it being IAH vs. PEK catering (don’t worry; I double checked to make sure it wasn’t served on UA tableware).



Meal service lasted less than 1 hour, water bottles were distributed and the cabin lights were turned off by 1:45am Houston time. I finished my episode of Sherlock before settling in for the night (it is worth noting that different episodes of the TV programs were available on this flight versus the previous flight; however, when I scrolled through the movies the selections were identical).

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Somewhere over Alaska, I woke up since it was already morning time in Houston. I went into the bar area, chatted with the purser and grabbed myself a little continental breakfast. After my breakfast, I went back to sleep since it was now 10pm Beijing time.

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About 2 hours to arrival (~2am Beijing time), I woke up when the mood lighting started to reappear. Dinner service began with the flight attendant walking down the aisle with a cart of four different amuse bouches to choose from. I was a little groggy at the time so I just pointed to something, which turned out to be smoked salmon with cream cheese on a little flatbread. Drinks were brought out followed by a single meal tray. In addition to a rather large serving of Mongolian beef and rice, the tray contained three sides: top left was shrimp and vegetables in some sort of sauce, top middle was tofu, and top right was cucumbers in spiced oil. After clearing my meal tray, the flight attendant came back with a tray with four options: chocolate cake, a pecan tart, a cheese plate, and a fruit plate. The pecan tart looked (and later tasted) good so I went with that and a fruit plate for dessert accompanied with a cup of Oolong tea.

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After the meal service, we were 40 minutes out so I had time to freshen up in the lavatory before we began the final descent into PEK. We had a kiss landing at 4:12am, followed by a short taxi to our gate. About 80% of the gates had aircraft awaiting some morning action, but I did spot the nose of a S7 A320 bound for Yakutsk taxing to the runways as were finishing our run down the runway.



We eventually turned towards the terminal, and got some great views of the remote stands filled with CA, SC, and ZH narrow-body aircraft along with a CA A332 in *A livery.



We then pulled into our gate alongside a KA A333.

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Air China advertises complimentary airport guide and airport transfer services for F/J passengers on all international routes to/from North America/Europe/Oceania so I decided to test this out. Deplaning through L1 was fast and I was met by an Air China representative holding a piece of paper with my name on it at the end of the jetbridge. My guide welcomed me to Beijing and took my carry-ons. Since we were the first international arrival of the day in PEK, he escorted me through an eerily quiet T3 to the immigration area. As we approached immigration, the immigration officers could be seen scrambling to their posts. I got my 72-hour transit stamp without any problems, then my guide escorted me through the tram system to the baggage claim. It was a 25-minute wait for bags, probably due to the long distance from T3-E to T3-C the bags had to travel. My guide collected my bag for me took me through customs, showed me to an ATM, and then took me into some secret elevator at the end of a dark alley (this is the moment when I thought my CA luck was about to run out…). We were deposited in a lobby area and outside was waiting a brand new E-Class Mercedes-Benz that had me at my hotel in downtown Beijing by 5:30am. This is definitely a nice complimentary service that was easy to arrange over the phone and made the arrival into PEK very stress-free.

The flight report ends here.

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Beijing tourism bonus:

Forbidden City

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Tiananmen Square/Mausoleum of Mao Zedong

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Hutong

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Temple of Heaven



Great Wall at Mutianyu



Junior Suite at Fairmont Beijing (w/ view from room)

See more

Verdict

Air China

7.0/10
Cabin8.0
Cabin crew7.0
Entertainment/wifi9.0
Meal/catering4.0

Continental Airlines Presidents Club - E

8.5/10
Comfort8.0
Meal/catering8.0
Entertainment/wifi10.0
Services8.0

Houston - IAH

8.8/10
Efficiency10.0
Access8.0
Services9.0
Cleanliness8.0

Beijing - PEK

10.0/10
Efficiency10.0
Access10.0
Services10.0
Cleanliness10.0

Conclusion

I’ve successfully completed three legs with CA without incident, fingers crossed for the last flight!

Cabin comfort: Same as the outbound flight, seat/cabin are fine in my books. Nothing to complain about. Despite being right next to the bar/galley, I had no problems with noise/light coming from that area.

Crew: Interactions with the FA when requesting to change seats was handled very nicely and meal services were pleasant, but they have an easy job when it’s lights off for 10 hours. If I was awake during the night, I did see the FAs passing through cabin periodically replacing empty water bottles with full ones.

Meal and catering: Food was not very good on this sector and I’m going to chalk that down to IAH catering. The Mongolian beef and the pecan tart were both pretty good so I’ll give them a couple of points for that.

Entertainment: IFE was same as before. I like that they rotate TV episodes so you aren’t stuck with the same ones on the inbound/outbound flights in the same month.

On-time performance: Boarding started on time and we left on-time. We arrived into PEK almost an hour early; maybe I should deduct points for making me get there too early in the morning.

Related

7 Comments

If you liked this review or if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to post a comment below !
  • Comment 125737 by
    marathon GOLD 10117 Comments
    In the age of e-tickets, having a paper copy of all them can help a lot, from my experience, and is sometimes mandatory, actually.
    I sympathize with the photographer in such nightmarish plane spotter unfriendly conditions in IAH.
    FR rumor has it that lounges in the US only offer carrots and apples, and this appears to be untrue (although the offering is a far cry from what is provided on other continents :)
    Thanks for the bonus - the facilities at Mutianyu have changed dramatically since I last went there, but the Great Wall is mercifully unchanged.
    Thanks for sharing !
    • Comment 307770 by
      NGO85 SILVER AUTHOR 1963 Comments
      I had a paper copy of my itinerary with me (since I needed it for the 72-hour visa) along with my foreign resident card for Japan, but the agent never asked, she just kept doing her thing. It's a situation where if the agent just let me explain, it would have been a complete non-issue.

      The Executive Club might be a little bit more well-stocked in the afternoons when it is heavily used during the departures of all the TATL flights. I was more than happy to have a hot food option available at that hour.

      It was a beautiful day to visit the wall (40s and sunny) and there were probably no more than 100 other tourists there.
  • Comment 125768 by
    KévinDC TEAM SILVER 6668 Comments
    I'm not surprised CA doesn't use the United Club, the Executive Club has actual food which is more on par with foreign carrier standards. United Clubs are just shameful...though AA Admirals Clubs (except for Flagship) and DL Sky Clubs are hardly better.

    Glad that the seat situation worked out. If the seats next to you were empty an hour before departure I'm wondering if those pax that filled the seats weren't Non-revs or maybe Op-ups due to the full Y cabin. Either way, it worked out well that the bulkhead seats were free.

    Catering ex-US is usually worse than ex-any foreign hub, but 2/10? that bad? IAD must be an exception as I've had some good meals ex-IAD.

    Awesome pics of Beijing and the Great Wall! I'll have to make use of the 72hr transit visa waiver at some point. Never been to mainland China, only Hong Kong several times--in fact, going to HKG in 2 weeks.

    Thanks again for sharing.
    • Comment 307771 by
      NGO85 SILVER AUTHOR 1963 Comments
      Okay, maybe 2/10 was a little harsh since I did eat everything served to me. It certainly wasn't inedible, but the pork was way over cooked to point it could have been rubber in a sauce. I forgot to mention this in the report, but in the Mongolian beef, there was a massive whole chili pepper (~2 inches long) that somehow made it into my dish. I took a bite out of that by accident and that was a big mistake... Compared to the other three flights, this was by far the worst food I had on the trip (even the catering NGO-PEK that had to spend overnight in NGO was infinitely better).

      I went in with low expectations given the way it is portrayed in US media, but I was pleasantly surprised by my experience in Beijing. I went in winter to avoid the summer smog and heavy tourist traffic, which I would recommend if you don't mind frigid weather (first day on the wall was in the 40s, but then it was in the 20s with 20-30mph winds for the last two days). You really need more than three days to see everything there, but that just means I now have an excuse to fly CA again to Beijing :)
    • Comment 307775 by
      KévinDC TEAM SILVER 6668 Comments
      I've had whole chilies several times in dishes on planes in Asia and it is a bit of a surprise when you bite in to it, but I like spicy food, so it doesn't bother me too much. I don't mind the cold at all... I used to live in Minnesota and Iceland is one of my favorite places in the world :-)
      Definitely a good idea to visit in the off season with less crowds and clearer skies.
  • Comment 133208 by
    pititom GOLD 11489 Comments
    Very nice report, superb pictures and cool hotel at destination :) Too bad for the catering, but that's common with Chinese airlines...unfortunately !

    Thanks for sharing !
    • Comment 313416 by
      NGO85 SILVER AUTHOR 1963 Comments
      Thanks for your comments!

      It's hard to get a lot of photos on a red-eye like this since it's night the entire 14-hour flight and you just try to sleep the whole way there.

      This was the only bad catering I had on the four flights with CA, the rest was good, which is fine for a functional airline. It's probably not an airline that will be getting your business any time soon ;)

      The Fairmont Beijing was a really nice hotel with a good Gold Lounge. Location is not the best since it is a block from the subway, but that may have been because it was below 0C when I was there :)

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