Best airline for frequent travel to China?

Best airline for frequent travel to China?

Hi, I recently got a new client so I'll be travelling to China regularly, mostly Beijing and Shanghai. Seeing as there are many airlines flying between these two cities and Sydney. Which one is the best? I'm both OW and Star Alliance frequent flyer.

Thanks in advance.

CX  - One World (Via HKG)

QF  - One World / China Eastern Alliance?

SQ - Star Alliance (Via SIN)

AIR NZ - Star Alliance (Via AKL) Not sure about Beijing.. Connect via HKG..?

Depends on budget and your timings.. SQ could marry back to VA if you have any flights within AU? Do you have much travel within AU. If so - consider QF? QF flies to PVG via SYD.

Thank you for the suggestions. I am mainly looking at the direct flights at the moment. Air China and China Eastern via their QF alliance seem to be the regular choices. I am price sensitive when it comes to travel - I work as a freelancer and would like to minimise travel time too.

In Australia, I don't mind the low cost airlines and all that.

I fly regular with China Eastern and find them comfortable between the two cities or China Southern.

ctrip is useful shows you punctual depature percentages.

seems always to be delays either way

Would a typical trip be to both cities? Or are you talking seperate trips?

I'm very biased toward CX. HKG is a brilliant airport to transit through. Naturally direct is appealing but I think I'd go CX regardless.

HKG is indeed great for connections, but direct would be my choice here because I'm looking to minimise travel time.

It'd be separate trips, depending on the task.

You'll probably don't want to hear this again, but yeah...CX.

It's a no brainer really.

Honestly, why would you even mess around with mainland carriers? You'll thank us in time, in spite of the connections.

Air China (Star Alliance) flies directly to both Beijing and Shanghai so if you want to maximise with one frequent flyer program and climb the status ladder & earn/use points, CA would probably be the best way to go. Otherwise you can go with a QF/CX combination with one world, QF flies directly to Shanghai & you can use CX to do Beijing (via HKG). I know you want to minimise travel time but trust me a transfer via HKG with CX is worth that extra 2 hours. The Chinese airlines often have delays so you may as well do the CX option and get better service/products.

Thank you for all the suggestions, guys! I really appreciate it.

I used to think like many others here and would hv included CX(+KA if you're really talking about mainland China network) due to quality of the carrier itself and HKG hub.  Not anymore.

Delays caused by congestion @ HKG hv now reached a point where connections are often not as reliable as it used to be.  This is especially true for CX/KA flights to/fm Chinese  destinations hindered by airspace congestion immediately adjacent to the mainland(There're 2 other commercial airports within 40km of HKG and 1 of them, SZX, has far more annual aircraft movements than MEL+ADL combined).  When added to  the perpetual congestion @ PEK and PVG/SHA anytime of the day(e.g. I hv used PEK over 15x over the last 15yrs and I hv NEVER had a flight departed there within 2hrs per scheduled ETD...similar story re PVG/SHA), U just don't want to mess with needless connection whenever flying to/fm Shanghai/Beijing these days.

Trust me, flying via HKG to/fm PEK, PVG/SHA is no longer a slamp dunk "extra 2 hours" affair as other stated.  In reality today, your layover in HKG can be much longer than that.  For leisure/vacation, that's probably no big deal and that terminal is indeed still a nice place to hang around.  But for commuting to/fm work?  The superior service/products of CX+KA(Not to mention @ a significant fare premium) are probably not worth giving up more family/friend time @ home and endure more stress fm multiple delays.