China Airlines

Does anyone have any experience with China Airlines for long haul to Australia? They seem reasonably priced but am a bit wary especially with such a long distance flight. Just wondering what they are generally like for in-flight service, entertainment, food etc. The flight also involves a few hours wait in Taiwan airport so would also like to know if anyone has been through there?

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No direct experience of China Airlines but

Taipei airport isn't particularily nice - it's not HK or Singapore airport - I've only passed through it briefly but it seemed fairly old fashioned and not a very nice place to have to hang around for a very long time.

At least some of China Airlines Routes from Europe to Taipei have an extra stop en route which will ad to your journey time (I don't think they're allowed overfly mainland China en route to/from Europe so the longer routing means an enroute stop for some flights)

Can't comment about the onboard service but I would have to guess it wouldn't be as good as the better Asian Airlines like Singapore or Cathay.

Flew china airlines 10 years ago, they were fine apart from the movies they showed. They were ancient. One movie was made in 1989. I'd imagine they are a lot better now

I am flying to austrailia flying out 29th dec and wont arrive in sydney till morning of 31st dec and we are going through taipei think we have a 12 hour wait in taipei airport not looking forward to that would it be worth while going into the city for a few hours as we don't have any baggage as it will meet us in sydney. Is it easy enough to get into the city from the airport or is it worth it, should we maybe get some sleep first seen as we arriving in sydney new years morning and will be parting all day and night?

I flew China Airlines last year from Amsterdam to Bangkok and back again and I would say it was only ok. It was fine apart from the 4 hour delay in Bangkok on the way home which in turn almost made us miss our flight from Amsterdam to Dublin. Also the monitors were really bad and they had this glare off them so the quality of picture was very poor and I can't even remember the movies they were that bad. Amsterdam to Bangkok was a pretty empty flight so you could sprawl across the seats but the return was full. I guess you get what you pay for.

The Skytrax forum reviews of China Airlines (http://www.airlinequality.com/Forum/china.htm) and Taipei Airport (http://www.airlinequality.com/Airports/Airport_forum/tpe.htm) are mostly quite positive.

Flew with them a few years ago and vowed never to fly a cheaper airline long haul again. Plane was quite old, no personal TV, snack available outside of main meals is a pot noddle of sort, unfortunatly the smell filled the cabin. Staff were fine, flights left on time but the actual aircraft and standard of service wasnt good enough if your flying all the way down under. Check out Singapore Airlines, hear they have a massive seat sale at the moment