Since the 1990s, China Eastern Airlines has been a fixture on the lucrative Los Angeles-Shanghai route, flying a mixture of McDonnell-Douglas MD-11, Airbus A340-600 and A330-200, and Boeing 777-300ER aircraft. It’s one of two SkyTeam carriers on the route, the other being Delta Air Lines, which sends the A350-900 between the two cities daily. While generally not the most luxurious airline flying to Shanghai from Los Angeles, it’s generally the most economically-priced, making it a favorite with tourists who are looking for convenience, not opulence. It’s been a while, over a year, in fact, since I’ve done a flight with China Eastern, and I figured doing this flight would be a great way to kick off a trip to China.
Server: Solo
Airline: China Eastern Airlines
Aircraft: Boeing 777-300ER
Origin: Los Angeles International Airport, Los Angeles, California (LAX)
Destination: Shanghai Pudong International Airport, Pudong, China (PVG)
Flight Number: MU586
Route: KLAX-ZSPD
Seat: 2A (First Class)
Time En Route: 13 Hours 39 Minutes
Getting up to board via the L2 door at Gate 133 at the Tom Bradley International Terminal. This is going to be our second-ever long-haul flight with China Eastern Airlines and our first-ever in their first class. Excited to see how it is!
Taxiing to Runway 24R after pushing out of the T3/TBIT alley. Our first class suite, one of six on this 316-seat 777-300ER, is quite impressive from the get-go. We’d heard that China Eastern occupies a similar position relative to China Southern Airlines and Air China the way American Airlines does to Delta and United Airlines, and while we had a decent time in their business class flying from San Francisco to Shanghai last year, we were somewhat apprehensive about just how first-class the first class seating would be. We’ve got a fully-enclosed suite with a sliding privacy door and a wide, comfy, fully lie-flat seat. Seems like a solid enough hard product for this afternoon’s flight.
Got a loud, heavy takeoff for Shanghai this afternoon! We’re departing in parallel with a United Airlines A321neo getting airborne from Runway 25L. The humidity must be pretty low today, because we’re not seeing any condensation in the engine inlet or vortices coming off the wings. Time to get settled in for our nearly 14-hour flight ahead of us!
After circling around Point Mugu, we’ve come back in over the coast for a little while east of Santa Barbara near the top of our climb. Our cruising altitude is going to be pretty low today,; only 30,000 feet, one we’ve seen more commonly on routes even longer than this one, like San Francisco-Bengaluru, New York-Manila, and Dubai-Dallas. However, it means that the seatbelt sign will be off early and will hopefully stay off for most of this flight, as we’re expected to have mostly clear, smooth skies over the North Pacific. It’s a beautiful day for a transpacific flight for sure.
Cruising along just north of the Aleutians. The good weather has held so far, with the seatbelt sign remaining off pretty much since we reached FL300. Lunch was served near the Bay Area a few hours ago. We had the pan-fried ribeye steak with morel sauce, fried potato silk, and vegetables, with a cheese tray on the side and a slice of cake for dessert. While the food was pretty decent, it wasn’t quite what we had hoped for from first class. The flight attendants serving it though were quite friendly, though, and the meal itself would be among the best we’ve had in premium economy and towards the upper end of business class dining on most European and North American carriers.
Waking up south of Tokyo Bay after a two-hour nap. Sleeping was very easy, thanks to the provided sleep mask and the comfortable bedding that came with our lie-flat seat. The first class cabin was pretty quiet, although it sounded at times like some people just had to walk up and down the length of the airplane over and over as loudly as possible while we were trying to fall asleep. As we finish up the cruising phase of our flight, we’re working on tweaking our resumé on our laptop for what has to be the fifteenth time or so. Might as well be at least somewhat productive on this flight.
In our final descent where the Yangtze River meets the East China Sea. Below us, container ships criss-cross the water as the enter and exit the Port of Shanghai. Shanghai has an even busier shipping port than airport, thousands of ships per year. Pudong definitely has its work cut out for it if the local air cargo volume is even going to approach a small fraction of the shipping tonnage.
Arriving in the New York of China in the early evening. After a final approach taking us over the fields south of the airport, we touched down gently on Runway 35L. The GE90s predictably slowed us down swiftly for a smooth exit. Deer Jet’s 787-8 is on the corporate aviation ramp in the background, snuggled up between a duo of Gulfstream G650s.
Taxiing to Terminal 1. As we prepare to disembark, we’re collecting our stuff to deplane as quickly as possible. Shanghai is not only the New York of China due to its status as a global commercial and financial hub, but also because of the seemingly barely-controlled chaos of Pudong during the evening rush mirrors that of JFK Airport.
Disembarked at Terminal 1 after a long flight. China Eastern’s first class, while not bad, is not quite what we imagined first class to be. It felt more like a more private business class, which was not quite what we had hoped for at this price point. However, it was still less expensive when we booked it than Delta One and it felt somewhat like a more spacious version of that cabin on DL’s 767s. Ultimately, China Eastern’s first class suffers from being in an extremely competitive region where being “good enough” isn’t. Despite this, we had probably the best cabin service we’ve had on a Chinese carrier, which counts for a lot on a long-haul flight. It’s definitely something we would come back to again in the future.
