Air Canada

i was looking into "gabelflüge (forked flights!)" to the u.s. this spring and they offered me a flight via Toronto & Montreal with Air Canada. how is this for an airline? never would have thought to fly with them.

since canadians are usually pretty tall, is there more leg room? just kidding.

Flew with them many times and had no big problems/issues. Their transatlantic fleet is pretty new. The airport in TO is still undergoing loads of repairs so the taxi time to the terminal can seem like 30mins. Thats the only bad thing I would say.

Would recommend them...although not in the class of Emirates.

Generally good, prefer Lufthansa planes as the Air Canada ones are a bit old and dated. I am not sure about the new fleet Canuck speaks of -we have had a couple of crappier planes in the recent past - but still quite nice by most standards.

The service and meals are good, never had any real issues to be honest.

The new terminal in Toronto is still being ironed out so can sometimes be a slight delay but it's still efficient.

Having been to Heathrow a few times lately I appreciate the efficiency of the Toronto airport Although nothing beats MUC

oh, you betcha! The reason I stay with them is the supreme in leg room. Never get leg room like that on Lufthansa. Even the domestic flights on Jazz (smaller planes) have great leg room.

I always fly, best bet, do customs in Montreal, much better than TO, esp if you have a connection, the flights are always delayed leaving Frankfurt, but there is express customs for those that have connections, and then you would head straight to US Customs right afterwards, and clear US customs before flying into the US.

I'm much more comfortable flying Air Canada or Lufthansa than an American airline, if only for safety reasons.

That's a load of bullshit since the FAA has some of the most stringent rules and checks on the fucking planet.

woof.

Blah blah blah. I'll be blunt: I'm not worried about Muslim extremists or trigger happy Air Marshalls on Air Canada or Lufthansa. The quality of the FAA's repair kit was the last thing on my mind. You won't find me flying on a US airline.

My but aren't we naive.

Example please, and not a load of jingoistic bullshit. The FAA has some of the most stringet regulations out there and the NTSB is by far the world leader in accident investigation. Sad that they can't write directives, only recommendations.

woof.

Are we? If it makes you feel better...

BD, like I said, I'm sure the FAA is very diligent. When I think of US airlines, though, I think of the Canadian citizen who was hauled off a plane on a vacation stop-over in NYC and shipped to the middle east to be tortured. I think of air marshalls gunning down a man with a mental illness. I think of Sept. 11th. I'm not thinking about how tightly the bolts are screwed on the airplane, I'm thinking of how tightly the bolts are screwed on the people.

and if we Canadians fly an US airline, that means two (count them 2) customs to deal with. Just like Elf will have to do if she flies thru Montreal or TO, customs one, then onto the US customs for #2. Its a royal pain in the ass.

If someone, for their own personal reasons chooses not to fly thru a country or a specific airline, its a personal choice, nothing more. I don't think gills should have to explain herself.

Actually it really depends on the flight you fly on for leg room when it comes to air canada. flew a beautiful flight from chicago to toronto on the 21st lots of leg room the seats all had televisions in the back of them where you could choose to watch a movie (from the start) and the selection was quite impressive for a airline. Then flying into butfuck newfoundland the leg room was shit the tv that came down from the ceiling was miles away and the sound system had a problem (ie every five to twenty minutes the whole system would screech and the channel would change to channel three! ). Saying that I wouldn't say air canada is really worse or better than any other mainstream transatlantic carrier, however one should avoid canadian border control like the plague they suck!


The same as if americans fly air canada. Had to deal with two customs this time round. Funnily enough customs wasn't a problem because BA lost both my bags on the route b/w MUC and ORD. I got my bags back despite BA's best efforts (as well as another bag). Both the bags got fast tracked through customs so my copious amounts of alcohol went through undetected. I would however say the montreal customs couldn't be any worse than yyz's customs because those guys are a grumpy bunch of humbugs if ever there was such a thing. I got molested to no end at Toronto for the simple fact of having no baggage at the border to be searched. Will stop the rant here.

Long and short Air Canada is not a bad airline. The food you eat is supplied by lsg sky chefs which is the same company that does lufthansa and emirates so you can't really complain about that. I would suppose on a transatlantic flight it would be a civilized ordeal. The only real trouble is the candian border people in Toronto. If that isn't a worry then who cares.

What's the trouble then?

I love Air Canada for the leg room too (at least on international flights...), but if you're flying through Toronto, make sure you have at least a couple of hours between flights. You have to take your luggage through customs and then recheck it, and the last three times I flew, my luggage didn't make it on the connecting flight and I had to wait a couple of days before it was delivered. I'm flying to Quebec City next week via Toronto, and I'll take a change of clothes in my carry-on just in case...

The last time we flew through Toronto we lost a suitcase too but I'm not sure how much of that was due to Lufthansa , Air Canada or Toronto Airport.

Anyways, I found the service on Air Canada pretty good for an economy class cabin on all four flights.

Lost as in "completely disappeared and never turned up again" or as in "missed the connecting flight and got delivered to you with a few days' delay"?

only once did my baggage never make it to TO, and that was Amsterdam's fault.

I do prefer customs in Montreal as opposed to TO, only because they have the express customs for those with connecting flights.

Iain - I have flown alot on different planes in Canada, and have found the domestic flights have always had leg room. My last Jazz flight (Montreal - Winnipeg) had tons of leg room, and the tv's were not yet installed. But there was a nice sticker saying coming soon.

Lost as in "baggage was returned but only after the mandatory 5 day grace period".

I did get around $200 in new clothes financed by Air Canada though.

I had one of the best service experience I can think of on Air Canada. I was booked on a LH codeshare from Toronto to NYC I think. The Toronto airport was struggling (as most were) with the post 9/11 security. Although I gave myself reasonable time - over 2 hours - the check in process was slow and the passport control was overwhelmed to say the least. The gate agent took a look at my tickets and realised that I was trying to get back to germany and noted that if I didnt make the flight I'd be sleeping at JFK. They bullied me through passport control and I easily made my flight. On top of it, they served hot fudge ice cream sundaes on the flight.

you got a sundae? man, all I ever get is caramel icecream and pizza.

I just flew Air Canada for the first time this Christmas, and to be honest I doubt whether I will fly them again if I can help it. On my flight over from Rome to Toronto my headset was not working and so I had a 10 hour flight without movies! The flight was full so there was not the option of changing seats. The flight then arrived half an hour late so I missed my connecting flight to Denver. The next flight out was not until then next morning so I was stranded in Toronto for the night. Air Canada refused to pay for my hotel claiming the delay was not their fault but the fault of the air traffic control. The following day my flight to Denver then arrived 45 minutes late! Also, on the second flight no food was served...only available for purchase! It ended up taking me 35 hours to get from home (in Florence) to where I was staying in Denver.

On my return flight I was stuck in Denver for 2 hours as there was a problem with the plane and they had to get the mechanics out to fix it. They then forgot to put any water on board so there was no water in the bathroom, no tea and coffee etc. Again only food for purchase on the Denver-Toronto flight. The movies on that flight were also not working properly so they had to restart the movie several times so I didn't even end up seeing one full movie.

Very disappointing!

sorry Petal but if a half hour delay on a long-haul transatlantic flight caused you to miss your connection you have no-one to blame but yourself for not planning more time for your connecting flight.

Well actually I should have had an hour and a half for the connection. As Air Canada sold me the ticket I trusted them to sell me a ticket with sufficient transfer time...I thought an hour and a half was sufficient as they sold me the ticket. The other problem was that the Air Canada staff at Rome refused to give me a boarding pass for my second flight so when I arrived in toronto there was all the hassel of trying to check in etc. I had never flown air canada before through toronto and didn't know how long the transfer would take. If an hour and a half wasn't long enough then air canada shouldn't have sold me the ticket.

What was the movie going to be? We can probably fill you in on the plot twists and surprise ending.

sorry about your experience petal.
the flight i am looking at is Frankfurt-TORONTO (with a nearly 4 hour lay-over in Toronto, which as I have read, is needed), then back, DULLES via MONTREAL. it's the cheapest flight at 550€, which means of course, more shopping money!

oooh, been reading some crappy things about Air Canada here . ah, well, flight is still the only option for under 600€ & since we'll probably do a few days in NYC, then I'll need the $$. will probably do FRA-YYZ-RDU (4 hr layover in Toronto) then EWR-YMX-FRA (1 hour layover in Montreal).

the one hour coming back is not alot of time, as you might have to clear Canadian Customs upon landing from the US. 4 hours in TO are easy kill... by the time you clear customs, collect your bags, give your bags to express boarding, then clear securtity again, you have killed at least 90min. Then you have to go the US customs for your US flight... so, that 4 hours will be gone, a relaxing gone but gone.

I would rather fly AirCanada than Lufthansa long haul. Believe me!

AC has the ugliest, fattest, grumpiest stewards and stewardess i have ever seen. In fact i think they have such prerequisites to hire their crews !

I have flown with them for more than 10 times and the crew treated passengers(economy class) as prisoners. Limited amount of food and drink per person, ... you can guess the rest.

That's because they promote their longets serving crew to the long haul routes. The babes are all going from Winnipeg to Edmonton.

Yeah, all the pretty girls are from the Praires any ways.

i think this probably has less to do with "promoting" and more to do with costs. If AC has been trying to reduce costs like BA did, it has to do with enforcing new working contracts on the staff. Older staff, who don't wish to reduce their incomes, get offered long haul so they can make up the reductions with route bonuses and allowances etc. New staff are offered short haul where the allowances are minimal.

But i meant long flights BTW. i.e. from Munich to Toronto and once to Vancouver.

I have never noticed that.

You havn't flown with United recently then???

I flew (economy of course) with family to SFO & HNL over Christmas/New Year. They didnt believe me beforehand when I
described the United service & state of the cabin crews.
On return trip we had Lufthansa from SFO to MUC - lo & behold the staff were half the age of United's,
the food was better & the plane (an A340) quieter...

All OT - I'm never flown AC

i didn't get the flight via Montreal for the way back. it gave me the option, then I went back to work and an hour later it was gone. so now we got La Guardia-Toronto-Frankfurt with a 2:15 layover in Toronto. you know how it is on the way home, you just want to get to your own bed.

that is okay, because it depend if you clear customs in Canadian Customs in NY or TO, that takes time, then you have to go thru security again, so that 2 hours will be gone, but in a relaxing way.
You can get good duty free in TO.

Flew with Air Canada from Sydney to Vancouver about 5 years ago. It was great. I had four seats to myself so I could stretch out flat and actually get some sleep.

my review on air canada:

we had an older fleet for our FRA-TOR trip, so no private movie-viewing stations. comfortable seats, rather roomy and decent meals. staff were very friendly. the Toronto airport seems to be finished, so we flew through customs quickly. had to take a shuttle to the a smaller terminal for our connection to Raleigh - a 26-seater "Jazz". on the way back, the check-in guy booked us on an earlier flight from La Guardia to Toronto as stand by since t-storms were coming in & we only had 2 hours in Toronto and flights were already delayed. guy was chatty & friendly. Toronto Pearson is a nice, clean airport. plenty of food options. Our flight back was delayed by 2 hours because of technical problem, but once again, staff was friendly. i'd fly them again, but I've decided to now only do direct flights if possible to the US. all those stop-overs are just tiresome.

You have never flown from Toronto to St. john's anywhere near Christmas time then, when the entire population of fort mcmurray are trying to get home for christmas. At least these days poeple aren't all using garbage bags as luggage. They pack em tight though thats for sure. I think I would notice the leg room issue more than the average flyer though. my legs are longer than the average flyers

Air Canada can be great and it can be ho hum, but although it can be variable it's never awful. not like transat or something.