@chunky

 

I saw that...
Aaarrrggghhhhhh

 

Air torture

 

As if OD-ing on snow porn isn't bad enough!

 

Just behind Air India in my experience

 

For the price I’ll ignore the service, or lack there of.

 

Yeah I would put up with it for the direct fight.

 

Just flew direct each way to Vancouver and it was great but wow worst service and attitude I have ever experienced on and off the plane.

 

Nothing has changed in 15 years then

 

Funny, American late-night talk show hosts always seem to be parodying Canadians for their excessive politeness.

 

The only issue with the AC direct flight I have is it's such a cram bus. Seats are small, service is basic, fed and watered, plenty of movies. Sure beats dinking about with stop overs.

 

Unless you hit a headwind and have an unscheduled trip thru US customs at Honalulu.

 

Or it's cancelled and you have to come back tomorrow

That sort of stuff happens across all airlines

 

Yikes, does that happen frequently on that flight? I'm trying to make some plans here.

 

Once in 15 trips, back in 2010. Something broke that took a day to fix.

 

Flew Melb-Vancouver direct a couple of weeks ago.... absolutely fine. Couldn't complain about anything. You get what you pay for.

 

You don’t always get what you pay for,
We asked how much for premium upgrade,
Was pretty expensive so said don’t worry,
He then said look what if in premium I also give you bulkhead with extra room and it’s only two seats on your own for you and your wife so we payed the extra(this took 1hr to process).
At boarding they said sorry step aside we need to print new tickets for you and then they moved us to the middle of premium.
They also made an error and held 4 charges of premium on our card for over a week and refused to help this maxed out our cc.
On the return my screen wouldn’t work and asking to fix it was like asking for a first born then after 2 try’s they said oh we probably can’t fix it just share your wife’s.
Luckily someone next to us moved and we could move over or it would have been 16hrs no entertainment.

 

Yep sounds like Air Canada all right, most Canadians avoid if possible, use Westjet if available. But the nonstop service from Australia into YVR is super convenient and helps maximise holiday time. People do place value on that and AC gets business despite customer misgivings. I know we thought about it a fair bit but concluded we would still rather eliminate sectors when we go in a couple of weeks. Plus the US govt shutdown could well be back on by then, anything routed through LAX or other US transfer point could be a big mess.

Westjet are taking delivery of 787-9 aircraft this year and next, but the announcements about new routes have all been Europe so far. Asia is next, likely Shanghai and Hong Kong first. I'm hopeful of an announcement for an Australia service but not sure how realistic that is.

 

You are 100% right the convenience is a huge plus and I’d probably consider it again but at least I’d know what I’m in for.

 

PE is a pricey way to avoid the sardine can which is the 3-4-3 economy configuration on a B777, costing near double the price.

A couple we know spent many years in the Maritimes so often go back to visit. Since AC went 3-4-3 down the back on their 777s what they do is buy the three seats on the side for the two of them. So it becomes kind of like Air NZ's "cuddle class".

They do it using a travel agent as (a) they are able to see if there are any such rows available before buying three seats and (b) the interface to the reservation system made available to travel agents allows them to apply just two sets of taxes, not three. So it averages out at paying about 40% more and works well.

 

Just got back. No real complaints in 4 flights. YVR>Syd was 2 hours late departing which was inconvenient but not totally terrible.

Seats were ok IMO, without being great. Staff were alright.

Biggest annoyance was the time they take to check you in! Press a few keyboard buttons>wait 5 minutes>press a few more> wait 5 minutes>repeat 3-4 times, and there is a 35 minute check in. Just nuts, but not a deal breaker.

 

Ive heard of this, but I wonder about th lo details. How you get around supplying a name for the nonexistent third person? And how do you prevent check in staff from taking the seat if they're overbooked?

 

The front end presented to travel agents by the so-called 'global distribution systems' allows them to do a block booking of three seats but just two people (and hence two lots of taxes). As to over-booking AC certainly engaged in that in my experience domestically and in the old days on AC33 going via HNL or to/from SFO and YYC giving me nail biting waits at the gate but once AC33 and AC34 flights went direct I never encountered it. Could have been luck. However these folks have never had a problem in connection with overbooking and their last return on AC34 was fully booked, and possibly overbooked, leaving the cabin crew puzzled as to how come there was an empty seat between them.
.

 

You also only pay for the fare and not the government taxes saving approx. $200-$300 on the normal seat price.

 

As a Canadian, we are typically held hostage to choosing between air Canada and WestJet and almost always we choose WestJet . Since they don’t yet fly to Tokyo we had to choose air Canada this time out of Calgary, into Vancouver, then Vancouver to Narita. Here is our experience:

Pros: price. The round trip ticket was $2000 cdn which included premium economy from yvr to Narita . I know this sounds expensive but anywhere international from Calgary is usually this or higher.
Duration: 1.5 hours to yvr, good 2.5 hour connection time, then 10 hours to Narita. Pretty good considering other routes had much longer durations.

Cons: oh boy... where do I start?
Mechanical: out of Calgary we couldn’t retract the landing gear as the pilot said the brakes had overheated on takeoff. Wait.. they use brakes on takeoff? Ok... we circled for ages as he thought we might have to head back to Calgary. Burned up about 30 minutes of our much hoped for 2.5 hours of connection time but hallelujah he finally managed to pull the gear in. Now i worried it wouldn’t come back down for landing in Vancouver, or worse the brakes wouldn’t work, but thankfully neither materialized. Geez, only first part of the trip and already I was stressed...
Oversold: flight out of Vancouver they started calling for volunteers at the gate as it was oversold. Can’t believe they still pull this crap. Then the gate next to ours , air Canada flight to Kelowna and Kamloops starting also asking for volunteers.... thankfully we got some and we all got on but it was full as a tick.
Seats: premium economy was basically economy with a 2-3-2 config instead of 3-4-3 and service was very unenthusiastic and lack lustre for the extra price. Glad we didn’t spring for the extra 1000 for two on the way back.,.
Luggage: last and the worst, one of our bags loaded with ski gear simply failed to make it upon arrival in Narita. Wow... ok... now what? Well kids, fill out a report and they will locate the bag and somehow have it follow us around japan from Tokyo to nozawa.. sure. Since we had 3 days in Tokyo we held out hope that it might show up. All the next day we called, tweeted, harassed, etc and all we kept being told was to watch the online tracking system with our ticket number and see the bag locators progress. The online system kept stating“ location in progress” even after we eventually got the bag back , status still said “ location in progress “ . Everyone from air Canada we spoke to said nobody knew where the bag actually was and even with 21s century bag tagging and digital scanning, still no one could say if the bag was in Calgary , Vancouver, or Singapore! Still wow. We tried unsuccessfully to enjoy our days in Tokyo but we couldn’t shake the stress and wondered how we would manage by renting all this gear and clothes for my husband since we were off to nozawa the next day. Finally hours into the next day we talked to an overseas agent who took the call late into the night , who admitted the bag was one of a few that were deliberately left in Vancouver as the plane was simply too heavy with all the people and carry on. Oh... hang on... now I remember , as we were supposed to be pulling away from the gate in Vancouver, the pilot came on and said “ sorry folks but someone has checked in but is not on the plane so we have to find their luggage and pull it off” what a total lie as we all looked around and couldn’t see any empty seats but ok. Now we know the truth. Armed with this knowledge we managed to track down the number ourselves for baggage services locally in Vancouver and called them as we stood wandering around the Meiji temple. We told them about this tidbit of information which they categorically denied . Fast forward two hours later... they call us back only to tell us the bag was indeed located on the tarmac in Vancouver and they will be sending it on the only flight out that night and it should arrive the following day. Freakishly, we had both JUST bought good luck charms at the vendors table at the temple.. . We hoped to god this was true as it was our last chance to get the bag before leaving on the train/bus to nozawa next day. low and behold 9 pm that night a knock at our hotel door and the magical bag was there! Beyond ecstatic, we went to bed. Next day we woke up and dragged this behemoth of a bag ( the rest had been black catted already ) all the way to Shinjuku , on the trains, and onto the bus from iiyama to nozawa then up the streets to our ryokan. All the way screeching like a cat in heat if anyone looked at it sideways for fear of losing it again. Huge pain dragging it around the place but happy to have it in our possession.

The flights home were long in economy but thankfully uneventful and all our luggage showed up back in Calgary. Would we fly AC to japan again and trust them with ski gear? Likely not, as the entire experience once again reminded us of why we always choose WestJet when given the chance .

 

First and last time with Air Canada. Their staff are idiots. Probably not the staffs fault but they clearly invest nothing into customer service or education. Held up in Brisbane with my Alpride airbag and told you cannot fly. Guess what I flew.... now out of Yvr the same. Guess what after an hour of banging my head on the desk I was allowed to fly. I carry a laminated copy of Air Canada’s and the IATA rules around rescue backpacks and they still cannot figure it out. Qantas or Air New Zealand are just easier. I just pray for a direct route missing the US

 

Nope never again full stop. Air Canada removed all Alpride cylinders once on the air side despite flying from Australia with them and having there dangerous goods management confirm I could fly with them. Incredibly difficult to get those cartridges. Sucks to be air Canada because they’re about to be bombarded with emails, phone calls etc etc. to make matters worse my douchebag was all floppy on arrival and airbag was not in its protective sleeve. No noticeable damage luckily for them. I will be getting compensation end of story on the cyclinders that we’re not only approved but IATA approved will all documentation

 

That’s f*cked! I’d be kicking up a fair stink too!