China Airlines

We are looking to use DH's Delta FF miles for a trip to Okinawa to visit family. Delta uses China Airlines as its partner. We've never flown to that part of the world before and I am just wondering what to expect. We have an overnight layover in Taipei but not long enough to do anything.

If you have flown China Airlines, how was your flight? Any suggestions for navigating the airport in Taipei? We neither speak nor read any of the Chinese or Japanese languages. I assume they also have signage in English.

In Okinawa we will be with family so I have no worries about visiting there.

You should have no problems -- all signs are in English and there will be plenty of people that speak enough English around the airport / hotel. I wouldn't worry about it at all.

Kurt

China Airlines is the 'national carrier' of Taiwan. I understand them to be on par with the likes of the big U.S. carriers- like Delta, United, etc.

You won't have difficulty navigating Taipei airport. Fortunately for us poor monolingual Americans, English is the world's default #2 language. Everywhere. The only place I've found this not to be the case is in Russia. They are as monolingual as we are.

Rose, check with ScoopLV. He has family there.

Jim

Thanks, guys.

Rose, if you go to flyertalk.com, click on forums, community and then trip reports, you will see quite a bit about China Airlines with pictures and the airports.

lvhmbh said:

Rose, if you go to flyertalk.com, click on forums, community and then trip reports, you will see quite a bit about China Airlines with pictures and the airports.

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Thank you. I did see a very nice review. I've also read some bad reviews so that leaves me wondering what our experience will be like. Oh well, this is our only option as we cannot afford to go any other way but with Delta FF miles and this is what Delta is willing to offer us. 140K miles each plus $385 in fees each. Still, that is less expensive than buying our business class tickets out of pocket.

If it were a shorter flight, we'd go coach but for that long of a flight, we opted for comfort. The reviews I read for coach class indicated the seats in front of you leaned back into your space making it difficult, if not impossible to get out of your seat. The photos of the business class seats looked like the ones on AirFrance when we flew to Naples last year. They were comfortable.

The e-mail I received from Delta with our flight info merely states Taipei airport but when I google that, two airports come up and I don't know which one it is. The e-mail does not give an airport code. The photos on google show English signs so I think we will be okay.

We recently cashed in US air miles for Asia and ended up on EVA Air which is also Taiwanese Airline. We flew Royal Laurel biz Class which is basically their first class and it was AMAZING! All flight attendants spoke English and Taipei airport is gorgeous, puts US airports to shame. You should be just fine.

Rose Pink said:

The e-mail I received from Delta with our flight info merely states Taipei airport but when I google that, two airports come up and I don't know which one it is. The e-mail does not give an airport code.

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The airport code is TPE. Sounds like a fun and interesting trip. We are going to Japan shortly, and I understand that English is not of great value there. We may get lost and starve to death. At least in China (or Taiwan) English really is widely used. I remember sitting in a restaurant in China and being approached by a family. The son (there is always ONE young son) walked up to DW and I and said, haltingly, "How do you do?" His parents stood by, beaming. We did a little English practice with him for a few minutes. We were all pleased.

Jim, if you're going to the big cities in Japan - Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto - English should serve you just fine. Yes, you'll run into people who only speak Japanese. But you'll run into lots of people, particularly in the tourist trade, who speak English just fine.

Your story from China reminds me of ours. My wife and I were in a city park (Beijing? Shanghai? I don't remember) that was not normally part of the tourist circuit. So we were a bit of a spectacle. While there, we saw an elementary school class - they must have been around 10 years old - of about a dozen kids. One by one, they ran up to us and said exactly the same phrase - "Hello. How are you? I am fine." It was just so darn cute

-Bob

Bob, Thanks for the info on English in Japan. It helps put my mind at ease. We'll just be going from Narita to Yokohama to a hotel, then sightseeing around there/Tokyo, then boarding a cruise.

OK, one other quick China anecdote. While there, every time our bus stopped, we were descended upon by hawkers of all manner of junk. It would always start high, but by the time we re-boarded the bus, the stuff was in variably one dollar. Late in the trip I bought a t-shirt with big Chinese characters that said "Mai Yo Chen". It means "I have no money'. I found that if I wore that shirt, shopkeepers, everyday people, kids, all sorts would run up to us, pointing at the shirt, laughing. Those who spoke English would ask if I knew what it meant. They would just melt in laughter, knowing that they'd NEVER seen a foreigner who had no money!

I could use one of those t-shirts! DH had one that said "national bank of dad."

Okay. Help me with my math. Taipei is 15 hours ahead of Los Angeles. So, if it is 11:25 p.m. in LA then it would be 2:25 p.m. the next afternoon in Taipei.
If we leave LAX at 11:25 p.m. on a Monday night (2:25 p.m. Tuesday in Taipei) and arrive in Taipei at 5:50 a.m. Wednesday, then the flight from LAX to TPE took 15 hours and 25 minutes.

On the return trip if we leave TPE at 11:50 p.m. on a Monday (8:50 a.m. in LA) and we arrive at LAX at 7:15 p.m. (LA time) then the return trip took only 10 hrs and 25 minutes.

Is this correct? Why is there a 5 hour difference? I keep doing the math over and over again and come up with the same numbers. What am I missing?


Travel Math website said the flight time is a little over 14 hours so the return trip must not be correct.

Deleted. I was mistaken. It's jet stream that explains the time difference.

Thank you.

Passepartout said:

Going West, you're going the same direction as the Earth is rotating, so you're playing 'catch-up'. When you are returning, the Earth is rotating toward you.

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I think you have this backwards. When you fly from east to west, the earth is rotating towards you.

When you fly from west to east, you are going in the same direction as the earth's rotation.

The difference in flight times has to do with the jet stream--leaving Asia and coming back to the US, you are going with the wind rather than against it.

We get it in domestic flights, too, though it's not usually as noticeable. One route I used to fly roundtrip regularly was always scheduled for about 30 minutes less flight time coming back, and would frequently even arrive 15-30 minutes before that reduced scheduled time. Always nice to get home more quickly!

Thanks for the clarifications. The five hour difference seems so huge that I thought I was missing something in my time calculations.