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THE ALVIATOR'S VERDICT
I'd be lying if I said I had much to compare this flight to, but this intra-China flight featured a seat with in-seat power and an adjustable headrest, a tasty hot meal, and free WiFi (subject to Chinese firewall requirements) |
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In November 2024, I flew China Eastern’s A330 economy class on a domestic flight from Shanghai to Shenzhen. I wasn’t flying the popular shuttle route between Shanghai Hongqiao and Shenzhen – I was flying out of Shanghai Pudong, as I was connecting from my longhaul premium economy flight from Madrid. However, I was excited to be flying domestically within China for the first time in 8+ years, and was keen to report back on the experience.
There’s nothing super exciting about a domestic flight within China, though the standard of shorthaul economy intra-Asia is so much better than it is in Europe and the U.S., and China is no different. Here’s my review of the flight, which was operated by a widebody aircraft, featured free WiFi, and also had a hot meal.
Booking China Eastern’s A330 Economy Class
My China Eastern A330 economy flight was part of a longer itinerary from Madrid to Shenzhen via Shanghai. The full ticket cost £481.1 (HK$4,993), which I thought was very cheap for a premium economy ticket. The full itinerary looked as follows:
17/11 China Eastern 710 Madrid (MAD) – Shanghai Pudong (PVG) dep. 10:30 arr. 06:20+1 (Premium Economy)
18/11 China Eastern 5331 Shanghai Pudong (PVG) – Shenzhen (SZX) dep. 09:00 arr. 11:40 (Economy)
While I wanted to credit points from this flight to Virgin Atlantic (another SkyTeam airline), I wasn’t actually able to enter my frequent flyer programme details during any part of the booking process. To Virgin Atlantic’s credit, the miles were credited almost instantly to my account after I put in a retroactive missing miles request. This segment earned me 759 Virgin points and 10 tier points.
China Eastern Domestic Ground Experience at Shanghai Pudong Airport
While I had the opportunity to do a “sterile” airside transit, I decided to venture landside to register for e-immigration in the future. Once I did so and exited the immigration hall at Shanghai Pudong Airport, I got to the terminal’s expansive departures hall. I’d never actually been at Shanghai Pudong Airport’s Terminal 1 before, so appreciated the architecture, which was captivating in a different way to Terminal 2.
Shanghai Pudong Airport Terminal 1
I found the domestic departures section. You don’t get priority security even with SkyPriority generally (at any airport, but including at Pudong Airport), and while the queues for the individual security stations weren’t very long, they moved quite slowly, so security probably took around 15-20 minutes.
Security at Shanghai Pudong Airport
Once I was through, I checked out the airport’s Lounge 35, which was located just by security. At around 8:05 AM I decided to head a bit closer to my gate, where we were given a departure time of 8:20 AM.
Shanghai Pudong Airport Terminal 1 Main Concourse
While the terminal looks incredibly expansive, there are only 14 jetbridges in the main area of the terminal – most of the jetbridges are located in the satellite terminal, which is a short train ride away. In this case we were assigned a bus gate in the main terminal, which was very accessible from security and the lounge.
China Eastern Gate Area at Shanghai Pudong Airport
There was a flight to Beijing departing by gate 201 at roughly the same time, and boarding was slightly chaotic because of that. Despite this, most travellers seemed to be quite frequent travellers, and knew what was going on.
At around 8:25 AM boarding was started. As a connecting premium economy passenger with SkyPriority, I was able to board via the priority lane, and take a dedicated bus to the plane. The catch was that that bus hadn’t arrived yet, so they were loading up the larger economy bus first in order to keep things moving.
China Eastern Gate Area at Shanghai Pudong Airport
I had a decision to make – either I could wait for the small shuttle bus and risk having it arrive after the first big bus left (where I’d lose any decent chance to take cabin photos), or I could take the (packed) large shuttle bus, knowing that the small shuttle bus could come, be quickly filled up, and leave. I ended up choosing the latter option, figuring that I’d have to navigate fewer people in the cabin if the other bus left first. So I asked whether I could take the larger bus, and was granted permission with no further questions.
The actual bus ride was very long – the plane was definitely parked well on the other side of the airport, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you told me the plane was parked at Shanghai Hongqiao, or something. It took a good 15 minutes of driving for us to get to the plane, and go figure the plane doors opened on the other side of the bus from where I was standing, so a few people made a beeline to the plane before I could have the chance.
On the plus side, I did have the opportunity to grab a shot of our beautiful A330-200 on this stunning day.
China Eastern A330 at Shanghai Pudong Airport
China Eastern Flight MU5331
Tuesday, November 18, 2025
Origin: Shanghai Pudong (PVG) T: 1 Gate: 200 Dep: 09:00 (09:05)
Destination: Shenzhen (SZX) Gate: 343 Arr: 11:40 (11:50)
Duration: 2 hr 40 min (2 hr 45 min)
Aircraft: Airbus A330-200 Reg: B-6545
Seat: 71L (Economy Class)
We were flying one of China Eastern’s 30 A330-200s – believe it or not, despite having flown countless A330 flights (including a period between 2014 and 2015 where I had a “streak” of 11 A330 flights in a row), this was only my third ever flight onboard the A330-200 variant.
China Eastern’s A330 Economy Class Cabin and Seat
This particular configuration of China Eastern’s A330-200 features 246 economy class seats, laid out in a 2-4-2 configuration across two cabins. The front cabin has 131 seats (16 full rows and three centre section seats at the back), and the rear cabin features 115 seats.
China Eastern A330 Economy Class
I had selected a seat in the rear economy cabin (as a premium economy passenger you actually had access to preferred seats in the front of the cabin, though I changed my seat last minute to maximise the chance of an empty seat next to me).
China Eastern A330 Economy Class Cabin
Specifically, I chose seat 71L, in the third last row of the cabin. Typically my preference on widebody flights is to take the economy class seat at the very back of the plane. However, in this case, the back row was blocked until check-in commenced, and was taken by the time I could check in.
China Eastern A330 Economy Class Seats
My seat, 71L, was comfortable – it featured an adjustable headrest, and a half-decent amount of recline for an economy class seat. These are older-style Weber 5751 seats, a last-generation seat used by many airlines – Cathay Pacific’s old A330 seats, which I love, are a modified version of these seats. My flight was only 2h 40m, though these planes run as far as Rome, a 12h 35m flight from Shanghai.
China Eastern A330 Economy Class Recline
Seat pitch is 32-33″, and I found legroom to be plentiful. The seat pocket was also large enough to store a laptop.
China Eastern A330 Economy Class Legroom
The bi-fold tray table folded out of the seat in front, and was sturdy.
China Eastern A330 Economy Class Tray Table
There was also a cupholder that folded out of the seat in front.
China Eastern A330 Economy Class Cupholder
Each seat also featured a universal power port, as well as a USB-A power port next to the remote control.
China Eastern A330 Economy Class Power Port
Then in front was an entertainment screen, though I didn’t find it to be particularly high-definition – stay tuned.
China Eastern A330 Economy Class Entertainment Screen
Overall, I felt comfortable enough in this last-generation seat for this 2h 40m flight. I also love the 2-4-2 seating configuration – the window pairs are a great option for couples, and even though I was travelling alone, I appreciated having a window while “only” having to climb over one other person to access the aisle.
However, I found the seat to have older tech (particularly with the entertainment system) and not a huge amount of recline or adjustable headrest support (or any storage beyond the seat pocket), so I’d probably find this seat to be a bit uncomfortable for a longer flight.
China Eastern’s A330 Economy Class Entertainment System
China Eastern’s A330 economy class entertainment system is even worse than the one on the A350. There’s the same selection of movies, with the added fact that the system is quite laggy.
China Eastern A330 Economy Class Entertainment System
Perhaps more comically bad is the TV selection – there are only five TV shows to choose from.
China Eastern A330 Economy Class Entertainment System
Someone might say “give them a break Alvin, this is a Chinese airline, so obviously a majority of the entertainment options would be in Chinese”. Nope – even in Chinese, the same selection was available.
At least there was a picture viewer, presumably where you could view photos on your phone on the larger TV screen. I couldn’t try this out since I only had a USB-C cable, though I’m not imagining this would be a revolutionary use of inflight time.
China Eastern A330 Economy Class Picture Viewer
Oh, did I mention there were eBooks? No, because there are zero eBooks in the archive – the icon is a dud.
China Eastern A330 Economy Class eBooks dud icon
Nobody books a Chinese airline expecting an award-winning entertainment system, though China Eastern isn’t a trendsetter in this regard, at least in my experience.
China Eastern’s A330 Economy Class WiFi
Here’s where I’m kicking myself a bit. China Eastern features WiFi on their A330s. I figured that I’d tried out their WiFi service onboard their A350 when I flew over from Madrid, so I didn’t need to pay again for WiFi on this flight, given that I’d already tested it out.
I wouldn’t have had to pay – China Eastern’s WiFi service is free onboard their widebody aircraft operating “domestic shuttle” routes. It seems like the process of connecting is very straightforward, as shown below (I found this leaflet after we landed in Shenzhen).
China Eastern A330 Economy Class WiFi
Do note that you’re subject to the great firewall, and won’t be able to use a VPN, as the WiFi blocks VPNs. If you’re not a WeChat user, Bing is your best bet when it comes to search engines, and iMessage will work fine (virtually all other messaging applications won’t work).
Taking off from Shanghai Pudong Airport
Although boarding was chaotic, I found it to be extremely efficient. At 8:45 AM boarding was complete, and the captain came onto the PA to given an announcement, stating our 2h 10m flight time. The flight was on the full side, though not every seat was taken, particularly nearer to the back (though mine was, and you wouldn’t have been able to find an empty pair of seats unless you were lucky enough to have the seat next to you unassigned).
The safety video was played at around 8:55 AM. The same video was played on this flight, including all of its eccentricities – e.g. “we bond with each other every time we are together, we see each other together every time we take off”.
China Eastern A330 Economy Class Safety Video
At this point the crew came around distributing blankets, where I asked for one. It was soft and did the trick for a flight of this length.
China Eastern A330 Economy Class Blanket
We left our remote stand at around 9:05 AM. It was an absolutely stunning day (despite being quite cold), and we had a 10-minute taxi to runway 35L, where we were slated to depart.
Taxiing at Pudong Airport
We ended up taking off just after 9:15 AM, making a left turn to head southbound towards Shenzhen.
Takeoff from Shanghai Pudong Airport
After takeoff I ended up napping for a bit, given how tired I was from the morning ex-Europe departure (morning Europe-Asia flights do not have my favourite flight time).
China Eastern’s A330 Economy Class Meal
Around 40 minutes after wheels-up, the crew came around with trolleys in order to present our meals. As is industry-standard when flying within Asia, expect a hot meal when flying domestically within China on China Eastern.
As to what hot meal is served, we were given a Chinese breakfast, with no choice of meal. No, this wasn’t rubbery eggs or soggy pancakes – this was black glutinous rice pudding with pork and pickled vegetable dumplings, served with a slice of yam and zucchini. The packaged nuts were “sauce beef flavour sunflower seeds”, there was a Chinese yoghurt drink (with a straw, resulting in lots of sucking noises throughout the cabin as people usurped their beverages), a pastry, and cold snow fungus dessert soup to finish.
As unfavourable to the Western palate as this dish may seem, I enjoyed it (I grew up in Hong Kong, so this was largely familiar to me). Everything was flavourful and well-executed.
China Eastern A330 Economy Class Meal
The cabin came around 20 minutes after this with tea and coffee, and the meal was cleared 10 minutes after this.
Disregarding the eccentricity for a bit, it’s always a treat to get a hot meal when flying intra-Asia. I don’t have much to compare this meal to, though I found it tasty, albeit the lack of choice.
Landing into Shenzhen Airport
After the meal was cleared, the flight was otherwise uneventful, and I slept for the rest of it. Shortly after, the captain came onto the PA announcing our imminent descent into Shenzhen Airport.
China Eastern A330 Economy Class Cabin
The cabin was prepared for landing around 20 minutes before we landed, and we touched down into smoggy Shenzhen at 11:35 AM.
Landing into Shenzhen Airport
After touching down on runway 343, it was around a 10 minute taxi to gate 343, where we’d be deplaning.
Taxiing at Shenzhen Airport
I took this opportunity to take one last look at the China Eastern A330 cabin before leaving the plane.
China Eastern A330 Economy Class Cabin and View of A330
This was my first time being in Shenzhen Airport in eight years, and it was as modern and trypophobia-inducing as I remembered. Since we were landing as a domestic flight, there was no need to clear immigration, but rather I headed straight out to catch the train heading into the city.
Shenzhen Airport Arrivals Hall
Conclusion: China Eastern’s A330 Economy Class
In a way this review is meant to be more descriptive than comparative, as I’ve not got anything to compare China Eastern’s A330 economy class to. Hopefully the review gives a bit of detail as to what to expect onboard one of these domestic services on China Eastern, of which there are many.
China Eastern’s A330 economy class was comfortable, WiFi was free (albeit subject to the great firewall), and there was a hot meal offered. I’m not sure what else I’d expect on a flight of this length. However, I’d be less keen on doing a 10-hour flight in this seat, mainly due to the aging hard product and terrible entertainment selection (and with my daily work, I’d prefer to use WiFi that wasn’t subject to Chinese regulations).
