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Taken January 2005 from London, England (Heathrow Airport) - LHR to Beijing (Peking) (Capital) - PEK

Having checked out the Air China UK website prior to booking our flight, we found the reality certainly did not meet our expectations! As my husband is 6ft 4ins tall, our main criterion when flying long-haul is seat pitch. Air China states that it provides a 34ins seat pitch in economy class, so we happily booked our holiday on this basis.

On the outward journey, the usual overselling issue became a problem when nearly everyone turned up. After a couple of hours of hanging around, as all the economy seats had been assigned, we were given business class seats. Its fair to say that we had a very comfortable journey.

Our return internal flights between Beijing and Xian were also fine. The economy seats we were allocated were of a sufficient pitch to enable my husband to sit quite comfortably - so no complaints here.

However, the return flight from Beijing to London was a different matter altogether. Having been allocated seats 27 D and E, even before we sat down we realized that there was not going to be sufficient room for my husband. Space was so tight that he could not pull down his table (because his knees were scrunched right up against the seat in front) and he ate his meal with the tray on his knees on top of a made up table of a folded blanket and pillow! I hasten to add that this was our own idea as the cabin crew just shrugged and went off after trying to force the table down into the non-existent space. After a couple of hours of discomfort, my husband was moved to an empty front row seat. This was not offered by the cabin crew, it came about through many enquiries made on my husband's behalf by our tour manager.

To be fair to Air China, some of the rows looked more spacious than the one we sat in. However, this is not a chance we are prepared to take in the future. Having taken a not very scientific measure of the seat pitch along 27 D to G, we estimate this to be approximately 30ins - 4ins short of the promised 34ins! - a huge difference if you are tall.