Continuation of my Asian stroll which after Hong-Kong and Seoul takes me to Shanghai. A trip made on China Eastern.

Check-in and ground experience

The check-in on the China Eastern application went smoothly…and it was impossible to retrieve my boarding pass in Wallet, too bad I have luggage to check in so it doesn’t bother me to retrieve it at the counter.

Arrival at the terminal 1 of Seoul Incheon.

There is no crowd in skypriority. The check-in of my luggage will take less than 2 minutes with a friendly and perfectly English speaking staff (Korean Airlines staff I specify…) who will take good note that I have a ticket to leave Shanghai a few days later and that I expect to benefit from the 144h transit visa.

The police and security controls are quickly done and here I am “airside”. A little animation that gives a “local” color.

I take the automatic train that brings me to the T1 satellite. There I cross the duty free area to go to the Korean Air Lounge to pass the time. If you don’t have the chance to access airline lounges during your travels and you regret not living this type of experience, know that here you miss absolutely nothing as this lounge is mediocre.

I end up leaving the lounge without regret and cross the terminal to reach my boarding gate located at its end.

Everyone is quietly waiting for the boarding to start.

We are told that there will be a 30 minute delay (and that business and skypriority passengers will start boarding 2 minutes before the others).

The boarding finally begins. Boarding priorities are respected. As much as we are few in the priority line, the “normal” line seems to stretch.

Our A330 is waiting for us.

The cabin

The business cabin has 8 rows in a 2-2-2 configuration for 36 passengers. These are obviously seats that turn into completely flat beds.

Does it remind you of anything? Indeed it is the same as on this Turkish Airlines flight except that there is one seat less in the width due to the narrower fuselage of the 330 than the 777.

It’s light and bright…maybe too much so. I will make the same (small) reproach to this cabin as to the current “Best” cabin of Air France: a white so white that it is cold and surgical.

No problem of space when you are almost 1m90.

Settling in on board

I am quickly brought an oshibori, then a glass of orange juice.

Then the menu is distributed to me.

The document is very “thick” since it proposes different menus depending on the time of day, the direction of the flight (Seoul-Shanghai or Shanghai-Seoul), and whether it is the beginning or the end of the month. All in several languages.

We will come back to this later.

It’s time to get moving. The safety instructions are broadcast and I found them incredibly long.

In flight

The in-flight entertainment system is not of the latest generation as the remote control shows, among other things.

The interface is a bit crude and the choice not really convincing.

In short, I would prefer my iPad.

As soon as we leave, some of us already fall into the arms of Morpheus.

Food

One hour after the takeoff we are served the meal. I had chosen pork as my main dish.

Original, in cutlery, even the chopsticks are metallic.

The starter is a little light but can be eaten. It’s fresh and tasty.

As for the dish, I am not necessarily seduced by its appearance.

I will not be more by the taste and the consistency. You can eat it, it’s not bad but you can’t say that you enjoy it.

For lack of carbonated water I will take some “soda water”.

Here is a meal which has the merit to occupy during the flight and to fill (at least partly) the empty stomachs. But nothing fantastic and, to compare with airlines in the region, we are at least a notch below my flight on Asiana between Hong-Kong and Seoul.

Nothing special to report on a flight of only 2 hours.

The staff and the service

The service was good but obviously one of the crew members was a bit novice or poorly trained. Oversights, difficulty in responding to passenger requests, it looked like a lack of mastery.

I also noticed some rudeness from the crew towards passengers when it was a question of imposing the closing of the window blinds in flight or to switch off computers and tablets.

Good but there is still progress to be made.

Arrival in Shanghai

After a long flight over the suburbs and industrial areas of Shanghai, which gave us an unobstructed view of the beautiful pollution clouds, we are finally on the ground.

Nothing to report except that, to my great surprise, the immigration process and the 144-hour transit visa went very smoothly, even faster than for people who already have a visa. In general, I was impressed by the professionalism and efficiency of the Chinese officials on the police and immigration controls which have nothing to do with what we know at Roissy for example.

Bottom line

A good experience, at least better than my first flight with China Eastern. The “hard” product is good and even if I’m not a fan of 2-2-2 configurations, it’s fine for a 2 hour flight and at least we have the chance to have a real business cabin unlike on European airlines.

As far as catering and service are concerned, it is still a bit “frustrating” and far from the standards of Asian airlines other than China, even if it is still quite acceptable.

For the record my routing :

• Paris-Frankfurt: Lufthansa Business (no interest, no review)
• Francfort-Hong Kong : Lufthansa First
• Hong Kong-Seoul : Asiana Business
• Séoul-Shanghai : China Eastern Business (here)
• Shanghai-Hong Kong : China Eastern Business
• Hong Kong-Munich : Lufthansa First
• Munich-Paris: Lufthansa Business (no interest, no review)

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