A Christmas Surprise (Air China Business Class)

[Mattg]

Last year, as some of you may know, I was living in Austria. But my family are in Australia and New Zealand, so for Christmas in 2019 I decided to return home.

I found a great deal on Air China Business Class flights from Germany to Australia & New Zealand which happened to include dates in the weeks before and after Christmas! So I booked, well in advance, but decided to keep it a surprise for my family. I didn’t tell anybody except for my dad, who coordinated things on the Australian side and kept me in the loop.

I took this trip completely oblivious to the coronavirus that would hit China hard, and begin to wreak havoc on the rest of the world, just a month later. Little did I know that by the end of January, Australia would ban all passengers arriving from China! I got in just in time…

At the time of booking, I wasn’t yet sure if my family would be celebrating Christmas in Australia or New Zealand. So I booked an open-jaw ticket with my outbound flight from Frankfurt to Auckland, and return flight from Sydney to Munich. (Vienna wasn't included in the sale, so I made my own arrangements between Austria and Germany by train.) I figured I could book a trans-Tasman flight later, once I knew what the plan was. I eventually found out that my family would celebrate Christmas with my grandparents in Brisbane this year, so booked an Auckland-Brisbane flight for Christmas Eve.

There were very long layovers in Beijing in both directions. (Perhaps that’s why the flights were so cheap!) But not to worry – Air China provides a complimentary transit hotel in Beijing. More on that later.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Thanks mattg, looking forward to this. I signed up all the family in Europe to come out on this fare later this year, so a trip report would have been timely. The fare was €1498 incl all taxes, sadly all refunded now. (Air China was excellent in providing full refunds, no hassles.)

 

[Mattg]

Fast forward to mid-December 2019, and I was at Frankfurt Airport checking in for my Air China flights to Auckland via Beijing. I would fly to Beijing on a Boeing 747-8, which I was quite excited about. Then, after a ~13 hour layover in Beijing, I would continue to Auckland on a Boeing 787-9.

After checking in at Frankfurt, I headed to the Air Canada Maple Leaf Lounge. It wasn’t a bad lounge, but some very important* (*in his own mind) businessman was talking so loudly on his phone while pacing up and down the lounge that I decided to move to the Lufthansa Senator Lounge.



The Lufthansa Lounge was probably the nicer of the two. It had a range of buffet food available and plenty of drinks to choose from. It also had an on-site spa, but it wasn’t free and the prices were hideously expensive.

Air China flight CA932
Frankfurt 19:15 – Beijing 11:45 (+1 day)
Boeing 747-8
Business Class

For this flight I was lucky enough to snag 11A, a window seat right at the front of the nose on the lower deck of the Boeing 747. It was a great aircraft, and I was happy with the seat.




Air China’s Business Class product is not the most modern or competitive out there. But it’s a fully lie-flat bed and actually quite comfortable. The only thing I noticed when sitting in the seat was that there was a large “dip”, as though many other people had already sat in the seat and it didn’t age that well.



The seat itself is similar to the older Business class seats on United. There was sufficient storage space around the seat and it was comfortable to sit or sleep on. Bedding, noise-cancelling headphones, slippers and an amenity kit were provided.

I found the amount of in-flight entertainment content a bit lacking, but it was otherwise fine. I did enjoy some of the destination videos, and even learnt a few things from them… for example, did you know that the number 1 attraction in Sydney is Chinatown, and that you can shop at the Gueen Victoria Building or Sydney Reef craft market?

(I’m going way off topic here, but the destination video for Munich was worse… the lady starts off by saying she’s going to take the viewer beyond German stereotypes to show them the “real Germany”, only to then spend most of the video talking about Oktoberfest before casually bringing up the war at the end. )

On Air China, Business Class is generally laid out in a 2-2-2 configuration. (In the 747 nose and upper deck, it was a 2-2 layout.) This does mean that window seat passengers do not enjoy direct aisle access. As all of my flights were overnight, I therefore chose an aisle seat in the middle section for most of the other flights.

I was happy to have snagged a window seat for this leg, however, as we had some great views of northern China, in the middle of winter, after the sun came up the following morning…




We landed in Beijing on time.



This was our plane parked at the gate at PEK:



The service on all four of my Air China flights was virtually identical, and I generally found the service to be good on all of the flights. There was a bit of a language barrier at times, but all of the flight attendants I dealt with could speak English to an acceptable level. In general, although I’d say the service wasn’t as polished as it is on, say, Singapore Airlines or Qatar Airways, the flight attendants tried really hard and were always professional.

As the service flow was pretty much the same on every flight, I’ll talk about it when I discuss the next flight.

Upon arrival, I queued up to get a 24-hour visa-free transit permit and cleared immigration. After exiting the baggage claim area, I headed to the Air China Transfer Service Counter near exit B. I had pre-booked a transit hotel, so they were expecting me. I was given a lanyard and told to wait for the next shuttle bus to my hotel.



The internet at my hotel didn’t work, most of the staff didn’t speak English and there was exposed wiring in the shower. Not that that was a problem (other than perhaps the wiring issue). Other than that, I was happy with the free transit hotel service which I wrote about in detail in another AFF thread at the time - Air China free transit hotel in Beijing

This was the hotel room at Yuanhang International Hotel:

 

[Mattg]

I slept at the hotel for a few hours, then headed back to the airport in the evening. After clearing security and immigration, I headed upstairs to the Air China Business Class Lounge.




The Air China lounge in PEK is nothing special, and they had a rather limited food & drink offering late in the evening (even though most of their long-haul flights depart then). But it was OK for a few hours. At least they had two massage chairs – one of which worked.

There was a bar service available in the lounge. I did find it slightly amusing that they had a small sign next to the bar saying “For your own health and comfort during the trip, we recommend you drink moderately”. That’ll stop ‘em!

 

[Mattg]

Air China flight CA783
Beijing 01:05 – Auckland 18:15
Boeing 787-9
Business Class



For this flight I was sitting in 12H on a near-new Dreamliner. The seat beside me was empty when we departed Beijing, but – as was the case on 3 of my 4 Air China flights - somebody was moved there shortly after take-off. Friend of the crew, perhaps?

The seats on the Dreamliner were identical to the 747:



The service on Air China was pretty much the same on every flight. Before departure, a flight attendant would welcome you and bring around slippers and a menu. You would then be served a pre-departure juice, water or champagne and given a hot towel. The champagne was Pol Roger Brut Réserve.

The flight attendant would then come around and ask what you wanted to drink and eat after take-off, what you wanted for breakfast at the end of the flight, and whether you wanted to be woken for breakfast if sleeping. They would then take the menu away from you, and you wouldn’t see it again for the rest of the flight.

On every flight there was a Western and Chinese option for both meals. I generally stuck with the Chinese meal and found the food to be good (with the exception of a couple of things where I couldn’t quite work out what they were or how to eat them).

This was the menu on my Beijing-Auckland flight:




Here's the Chinese dinner:




I then slept comfortably for several hours, waking up in time for the Chinese breakfast, which was served around 2/3 of the way to Auckland:





We arrived an hour late. This was our jet parked at the gate in AKL:

 

[Mattg]

Thanks mattg, looking forward to this. I signed up all the family in Europe to come out on this fare later this year, so a trip report would have been timely. The fare was €1498 incl all taxes, sadly all refunded now. (Air China was excellent in providing full refunds, no hassles.)

I think that's about what I paid. For the price, I thought it was exceptional value. I have to say, I went in with low expectations of Air China but was pleasantly surprised.

It's a shame that your family couldn't take their trip.

 

[Mattg]

My grandmother lives in Auckland and had no idea I was coming.

Rather than turn up unexpectedly late in the evening (I only left the airport at 8pm), I decided to spend the first night at Holiday Inn Auckland Airport. I picked up a good deal at this hotel using IHG PointBreaks (which has sadly now been discontinued), and was really happy with it. It was a pleasant hotel with great staff, and easy to get to/from the airport by bus.

My room at the Holiday Inn:


Despite having just changed 12 time zones, I somehow managed to sleep that night from midnight until 5am, and had barely any jetlag for the rest of the trip until I got back to Europe. I normally get knocked around a fair bit, so I'll take that as a (huge) win!

The next afternoon, I caught a bus over to my grandmother's house and turned up out of the blue with a suitcase and backpack. When she answered the door, she couldn't quite believe what she was seeing. I had just spoken to her in Europe a few days earlier to wish her a merry Christmas. She welcomed me in and, after the initial surprise, we had a chat about what we'd do for the next few days.

At this point, my dad and grandmother were the only two people that knew I was in New Zealand. I gave my Nana very strict instructions not to tell anybody - especially my family in Australia!

The next day, my mother rang my grandmother for a long chat. I was terrified that my many months of planning would be spoiled and mum would find out that I was literally sitting right next to Nana when she called. But Nana played along like a champ and did a superb job not to give anything away. Phew!

Meanwhile, I posted absolutely nothing on social media and tried not to reply to any messages from family at times when I would normally be asleep in Europe. I think I ended up leaving my phone on airplane mode during European night hours for the next few days, just to be safe.

We did however tell me aunt, who lives north of Auckland, that I was here and we arranged to visit her and my cousin for a few days. We had a very pleasant few days around Leigh together just before Christmas.

 

[VPS]

Yay a trip report

 

[LadyC]

Loving the surprise element of it all!

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I slept at the hotel for a few hours, then headed back to the airport in the evening. After clearing security and immigration, I headed upstairs to the Air China Business Class Lounge.

The Air China lounge in PEK is nothing special, and they had a rather limited food & drink offering late in the evening (even though most of their long-haul flights depart then). But it was OK for a few hours. At least they had two massage chairs – one of which worked.

This was the old Beijing airport? IIRC, as an Air China business class passenger you are permitted to use the First class lounge at that airport. They are virtually identical, just the f class lounge is less crowded. This rule doesn't apply at the new Air China lounges in PVG, where there's a distinct upgrade between the two lounges (including champagne at the F/Cl lounge).

I'm guessing the new Beijing Airport will have a similar distinction in lounges.

 

[Mattg]

This was the old Beijing airport? IIRC, as an Air China business class passenger you are permitted to use the First class lounge at that airport. They are virtually identical, just the f class lounge is less crowded. This rule doesn't apply at the new Air China lounges in PVG, where there's a distinct upgrade between the two lounges (including champagne at the F/Cl lounge).

I'm guessing the new Beijing Airport will have a similar distinction in lounges.

Yep, it was Beijing Capital (PEK).

To be honest, I couldn't actually find the first class lounge! I think it may have been under renovation. In any case, nobody informed me that I would have had access so I didn't worry about it. I imagine it wouldn't have been much of an upgrade anyway, as you say.

 

[Mattg]

On Christmas Eve, my aunt drove me to Auckland Airport where I picked up a Qantas flight to Brisbane.

I arrived at AKL early enough that the Emirates Lounge was still open, so headed in there first for some lunch. As always, the Emirates Lounge was a delight and the food excellent. Sadly, the DPS flight boarded soon after and the lounge closed, so I headed next door to the tired old Qantas lounge.

On this occasion, the QF lounge was better than usual. It looked like they'd just replaced some of the old furniture and Christmas ham was available at the buffet. The lounge manager was also walking around offering special Christmas coughtails, which was a nice touch!



Qantas flight QF126
Auckland 16:30 - Brisbane 17:10
Airbus A330-200
Economy Class




I've flown Qantas across the Tasman many times, so I knew exactly what to expect. Perhaps the only surprising thing about this flight was that priority boarding worked perfectly! (Although, I don't think it ever was a problem in Auckland.)

The only other unusual thing was that the cabin crew were wearing santa hats, and the CSM welcomed us on board the "Christmas flight to Brisbane".

The flight was almost full, although I did have an empty seat next to me. I was sitting in a window seat near the front of economy class. (Oh, how I wish I could get on a full trans-Tasman flight again now!)



It was a domestic-configured A330 (VH-EBC) so in-flight entertainment was via iPads. This worked fine, although I was disappointed that there was no music available! Generally this would have been available on an international flight. (I do realise that right now there is no IFE at all on most Qantas flights, so I guess I should consider myself lucky.)



Lunch was served after takeoff. I opted for the cold chicken salad, which was served with a stale garlic bread roll.



Ice creams were served after lunch.



All in all, an uneventful and pleasant Qantas flight. I do enjoy flying on the A330s across the Tasman; hopefully Qantas will keep using them after the borders reopen.

Being Christmas Eve, there was a very long queue for immigration at Brisbane Airport. A brawl almost erupted when a French man tried to cut the queue and wouldn't take "no" for an answer. This might work in some places, but not in Australia!

My dad was waiting to pick me up at BNE. He'd made up some story about needing to go shopping at DFO. He didn't come back with any shopping, but he wasn't empty handed.

 

[Mattg]

We arrived at my grandparents' place just before dinner on Christmas Eve. My grandparents were initially a little annoyed that my dad had spent so long "shopping", but I don't think anything could have prepared them for the surprise to come.

I snuck in quietly through the garage. When I walked into the house, the first person I saw was my mum. She started crying. Meanwhile, my brother and grandparents were upstairs. When I walked up the stairs, my brother was the first person to spot me. The look of disbelief on his face was priceless!

My grandparents were in the kitchen. I walked over and at first they didn't notice me. When I said hello, they both took a few seconds to do a double take. They were in total shock, but very pleasantly surprised to see me once they realised what had happened!

I had been planning this surprise for about 10 months, and managed to pull it off without a hitch. Nobody suspected a thing!

A couple of days beforehand, mum had asked me what my plans were for Christmas and New Year. I told her that I would travel to Munich in a few days to meet a friend from uni, then we'd both head back to Vienna and celebrate New Year's Eve at my place. That was 100% true... I just "forgot" to mention that I would be travelling from Sydney - not Vienna - to Munich.

As I expected, I didn't receive many Christmas presents (since nobody was expecting me!) but I didn't care at all. I was just happy to be with my family, and I think they were happy to see me too.

We spent Christmas Day with the extended family (who also weren't expecting me) and I had a great few days in Brisbane. I'm glad I made the trip because I'm not sure when I'll be able to see my grandparents again. Even though I'm back in Australia now, I can't even get into Queensland.

A few days later, I drove down to Sydney with my parents, stopping along the way to visit @Jacques Vert in Coffs Harbour. The bushfire season was well underway at this point, so I was a bit concerned that some of the roads between Brisbane and Sydney might be closed due to the fires and I could miss my Air China flight. But I made it to SYD in plenty of time to pick up my evening flight on 28th December. I even had enough time to go for a walk around Sydney.




A sight you don’t see often these days: A Qantas A380 flying over Sydney Harbour on its way to DFW...

 

[Mattg]

Air China flight CA174
Sydney 20:40 - Beijing 04:40 (+1 day)
Boeing 777-300
Business Class

This was another pleasant flight with Air China, this time on a Boeing 777.

While waiting for the flight at SYD, I tried both the NZ and SQ lounges. I normally prefer the SQ lounge but on this occasion I actually found the food quite poor. I probably should have stuck to the NZ lounge, which is where Air China directs its passengers.



I had another centre aisle seat for the overnight flight to Beijing.



As always, a hot towel and drink were delivered before takeoff, along with the menu.



This was the menu for the SYD-PEK flight:




And here are some of the wines on the drinks list (which didn't seem to change at all between flights):






An identical L'Occitane amenity kit was given out on each flight. These were the contents:

 

[Mattg]

On this particular flight, the cabin crew were quite busy before departure and didn't get time to take my meal order before take-off. They came back after take-off to take my drinks, dinner and breakfast orders.

The dinner service started with canapés:



Followed by a salad and a Western appetiser, which was... also a salad.



I opted for the Chinese main course, which was tasty.



This was followed by dessert:



Again, I found the food quite good. My only complaint was that it took 3 hours to complete the dinner service! On an overnight flight where most passengers want to maximise sleep, that is too long. Even Qantas can usually finish a meal service in less time.

After dinner, the lights were switched off and I slept comfortably for several hours.

I had asked not to be woken for breakfast, so continued sleeping through the first part of the second meal service. When I did wake up, the lights were already on and a flight attendant brought me breakfast immediately. I had asked for the Chinese meal again, but there weren't any available so I was stuck with the rather boring - but satisfactory - Western option.



Again, for reasons I don't quite understand, the breakfast service commenced very early. With still a full 90 minutes before arriving in Beijing, the breakfast service was completed and the lights switched back off until we prepared for landing. I can never quite understand why some airlines start serving breakfast 3 hours before landing on overnight flights. Especially when the scheduled arrival time is 4.40am! Combined with the lengthy dinner service, this leaves only 5 hours of the 11-hour flight to sleep.

We landed just after 4am local time in Beijing, and I headed over to the TWOV desk again. My onward flight to Munich didn't depart until after 2am the next day, so I had a 22-hour layover this time.

I spent about an hour waiting in line to get a transit permit. Several redeye flights arrived at around the same time (other passengers in the queue had just arrived from Thailand and Russia) so there was a long line. But as it was the middle of the night, there were only two staff members manning the desk.

I once again headed to the Air China transit service desk after clearing immigration. This time I'd opted to stay at Wansihotel, which I think was probably the better of the two that I stayed at.

This was the room:



It took quite a while before the shuttle arrived, though, and it was already 7am by the time I checked into the hotel.

The hotel staff spoke extremely limited English. Now, that's totally fine... I don't speak Mandarin, so I will never criticise somebody for not speaking English in their own country! But that did make it rather difficult to explain what time I wanted to book a shuttle back to the airport. I wanted to return to the airport at midnight, but the staff didn't understand the word "midnight". I tried saying "24 o'clock" and "0 o'clock", but they still didn't understand. I then tried "12 o'clock in the night", "12am" and "12-zero-zero", but then they thought I meant midday, which confused them as my next flight was at 2.20am. I ended up just booking the shuttle at 11pm as that seemed easier to communicate.

 

[Mattg]

Even though it was 7am in Beijing when I got to my hotel room, it was now midnight in Europe. I didn't get a full night's sleep on the flight, so thought I'd see if I could sleep through the morning in Beijing. After all, that would help me adjust to European time when I got home.

I must have been tired, as it was already 2pm when I woke up! I had somehow managed to sleep from midnight until 7am European time, which was a huge help in adjusting my body clock.

As I had a longer layover in Beijing this time, I headed into the city. That evening I had booked a Hutong evening food tour with Lost Plate tours, which was lots of fun.

There was a group of around 15 people on this evening's food tour, which stopped at 5 local eateries. We got to try some absolutely delicious food, including traditional Beijing noodles, door nail meat buns (tastier than they sound!), spring pancakes and kung pao chicken. The final stop was at a craft beer bar.

This was at the Mongolian BBQ restaurant:



We were transported by tuk tuk between each of the stops, with a bit of walking around the city's historic Hutong district as well. At this point it was the middle of winter in China, and I recall that it was absolutely freezing outside!

We had an interesting mix of people on the tour, including people from the UK and Sweden. By pure coincidence, there also happened to be an AFF member from Melbourne on the tour! He had been travelling around China for a few weeks and, if I remember correctly, was planning to travel to X'ian the following day to visit the Terracotta Warriors. @troels, it was nice meeting you and I hope you enjoyed the rest of your time in China and the trip home on SQ!

The tour finished at around 10pm. I caught an Uber back to my hotel, where I picked up my stuff and returned shortly after to the airport.

 

[Mattg]

Air China flight CA961
Beijing 02:20 - Munich 05:20
Boeing 777-300
Business Class

The final flight of this trip was fairly uneventful, other than the fact there were very few passengers on board. (And this was before COVID-19!)

It was an older Boeing 777 this time, which had a First class cabin but an older in-flight entertainment system. I recall that the entertainment on this aircraft was quite disappointing - difficult to navigate and lacking good content. But it didn't really matter because I slept for most of the flight.

The Business class seats were identical to those on my other flights.



I woke up in time for breakfast, which was unremarkable.



We landed on time in Munich just after 5am, local time. At this time of the morning, the only other arrival was a Lufthansa flight from Mexico City, so I got through immigration within a couple of minutes. I then waited an entire hour for my suitcase to appear on the baggage carousel (even though it had a priority tag)!

The first few bags appeared relatively quickly, but only five or so random bags appeared in the first wave. This was enough to trigger the "bags on carousel" message on the display, and presumably some KPI of the baggage handling company. But the screen was already saying "delivery completed" well before any more bags appeared. Hmm.

 

[Mattg]

I spent the next day with my friend in Munich before we caught a train to Vienna on New Year's Eve.



We brought in the start of 2020 - a year which I'm afraid most people would agree has turned out to be a massive disappointment - at the New Year's market outside the Vienna town hall.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Followed by a salad and a Western appetiser, which was... also a salad.

Quite common on US carriers too!

I can never quite understand why some airlines start serving breakfast 3 hours before landing on overnight flights. Especially when the scheduled arrival time is 4.40am!

The best reason I have come up with, so far, is the risk of turbulence. If you plan to serve breakfast 90 minutes before arrival but have an hour's turbulence it could mean no meal service.

A couple years ago on a United flight into PVG they apologised to business and coach that they couldn't serve breakfast at all due to bad weather. Not so good on a 12 hour flight.

Even Qantas can usually finish a meal service in less time.

Lol... on a MEL-SYD flight??

 

[maia200]

This is a fabulous trip report, thank you for sharing....especially since we cannot travel for a while.....I was also booked on Air China business class to Taiwan but had to cancel - it is good to be able to see what we missed - or didn't miss. We booked them as they were partners of Qantas and had a great fare.