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I have to take a flight from Germany to Taiwan (Taipei), however I have zero long haul flying experience from the past.

There are different options for traveling from Germany to Taipei, but the only non-stop flight is offered by China Airlines. Unfortunately the reviews that I saw online are not the most encouraging ones.

In a Business Insider post, this airline is listed among top 10 worst airlines in the world. The article is outdated (2010), but recent posts in other travel related forums are on the same line.

Obviously, also other people had concerns regarding this airline: 1) Is China Airlines safe? 2) China Airlines, safe?

Since I am not much experiences, I don't know how should I approach those posts either. Take them for granted? Take them with a grain of salt? One thing I know for sure is that, I don't want to fly for 12+ hours in an uncomfortable flight.

Other option would be flying with another airline, with the downside of 1 stop. Judging in terms of the time lost, but safety (most importantly), and comfort gained, Is it worth it?

I also noticed Eva Air carrier, although it does not appear in any of the flight search engines that I tried (is that an indication?). Any thoughts about them?

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Kristof Tak
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2 Answers2

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Safety wise, if an airline is allowed to land at an EU airport they are safe. That simple. They need to adhere to the EASA regulations for that. Also, they are in the IATA IOSA registry and the last time China Airlines had a fatal accident was in 2002 and the last time they had any accident was in 2007. Source: https://aviation-safety.net/database/operator/airline.php?var=6932 This airline is as safe as any.

Edit: also, the airline flies to the USA and Australia. And Australia is never too shy to revoke certificates for unsafe airlines, it happened as recently as 2011 when Tigerair was grounded.

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Eva Air is definitely a good carrier but they only serve Vienna, Paris, London and Amsterdam in Europe. Depending on where you are in Germany one of those may be an option.

If you allow for a stopover there a literally 100s of options. Most of them seem to be considerably cheaper than China Airlines and you could consider spending on "Premium Economy" for a little extra comfort.

For review of individual flights, airplanes and seats, check out seatguru. Very helpful in determining "comfort".

Assuming you are departing from Frankfurt and you are not trying to squeeze the last Euro out of the ticket I would go with Cathay Pacific through Hong Kong.

Safety is typically not a real concern with any internationally operating airline. Even if the record is less than spotless, the risk of accident during flight is many times lower than risk of driving to the airport. Airplane accidents get hyped in the media but in actually they are exceedingly rare. See for example: http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2015/01/air-safety

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