Air Canada rouge

Rouge is a great disappointment. Air Canada has labelled it as a "leisure" airline which is code for poor service cramped seating space and price gouging. The number of "Air Canada" flight routes are rapidly dwindling with the carrier moving routes to Rouge service. Last week I flew Toronto return to Tampa. The seating pitch is cramped. The passenger next to me continually had their head in my lap while trying to access their under seat storage. When the passenger in front fully reclined their seat I briefly thought about offering them money to return their seat back so that I could have a few more inches of space. The entertainment system is not well thought out. Passengers on both my flights were not using headphones to watch their devices. Volume levels were on high to compete with the jet noise and their hearing aids. With the in-flight entertainment system headphones are required to access the entertainment sound. None of the flight attendants addressed the lack of headphone use issue but instead preferred to ignore it. The entertainment selection on the Rouge app is not appealing. Very sad is that the cost to fly Rouge in May was more than 40% higher than to fly Air Canada less than a year ago with the same advance booking time. I will not fly Rouge again.

I recently used the last 2 credits of my Air Canada Sunpass (YUL-LAS) that I purchased in August 2013 fully expecting the full J experience I had paid for. Took the first return flight in September and it was the mainline perfect. Then my route got Rouged. Had 4 credits left and I got to be the guinea pig on one of the very first Rouge flights to LAS. Late broken plane. Inexperienced crew. IPADs didn't work. Then they did. Saw the selection and was wishing it didn't work again. Service was poor to passable seats were broken. Lumpy metal boxes blocking the under seat space for feet or bags. I just used my final 2 credits a few days ago and expected some kinks to be worked out nope same crummy IFE.

Worst flying experience in a very long time. Flew AC Rouge back from Vegas to Calgary. First irritant was paying Worst flying experience I have had. Las Vegas-Toronto. Unfriendly and no service nothing to eat no entertainment. Very hot on the plane.

Flew Toronto to Las Vegas with Air Canada Rouge. Didn't realize when booking that this was the new discount airline. Had to pay $25 each each way to check a bag. When we got to the airport flight was delayed by an hour due to issues with the plane. Kept announcing more and more delays. Flight crew showed up then left. When our plane was finally ready to go no one could get a hold of the crew had to wait another 10 minutes for them to show up. Carry-on compartments were small attendants spent forever trying to rearrange them to fit everyone's bags. Maybe if checked bags were free people wouldn't be trying to cram so much into their carry-ons? Seats were cramped no TV screens at all. You can download an app for your iPad to watch movies which they tell you about on the plane (app has to be downloaded before boarding). Or you can rent one of Air Canada's iPads for $10. Food was awful not worth the $30 it cost. Usually like Air Canada but will never fly with Air Canada Rouge again.

Worst flying experience in a very long time. Flew AC Rouge back from Vegas to Calgary. First irritant was paying to have my bag checked. Apparently because I was flying on airmiles I couldn't check in online. Got to the check in area at airport and the desk clerks were insistent I use self check in which didn't work properly for us so eventually they let me (and my party of 5) check in at the counter. If I wanted to change seats they were going to charge me $25 per seat (by the way these are all things that another airline provides free of charge). No entertainment system other than their "rent an ipad" system I tried to connect my tablet as they indicated with free wi-fi but because I had not pre loaded some app it did not work. Glad I did not rent an iPad for $10 because they only passed them out nearly an hour into the flight and collected them an hour prior to landing (which left less than an hour for viewing). Leg room is a bit of a joke and the speaker system above my head nearly blew my eardrums out which was more than just a small irritant. Oh yes nearly forgot to mention that for no explained reason they changed the time of my flight to more than one hour earlier. I will do everything in my power to avoid flying this airline in the future. I think it might be time to trade in my Aeroplan miles for some other rewards.

Earlier this year I bought a flight pass (an 8 flt SunPass to be used from YYC-LAS) all the flight were AC. My first return booking with my flight pass my trip there is AC with all the regular amenities - and leg room. My trip back however was on Rouge and all further flights on the pass look to be Rouge as well. I am tall 6'2" and I actually "upgraded" to Rouge Premier which is their version of Business Class. My knees still touched the seat in front of me and the seats were no wider. Still 3x3 in "Business Class" upfront so if you pay for an upgrade (I used points) be very careful as you can still get a middle seat. Still the same as the back no power no entertainment. but they do offer an iPad with the App pre-loaded which still makes me shake my head. No real place to put it with the exception that it came with a cover and you could sort of hang it from the seat back in front of you where in other airlines the entertainment was supposed to go. Two problems with this. 1) the earphone cable has to stretch over the tray and if you're using that for a drink or food the risk of knocking something off of that with the earphone cable rises sharply and of more concern 2) if the plane hits some unexpected turbulence all of a sudden you've got iPads flying everywhere - at least far more than you would on an AC flt. All this aside I still felt like I've paid for an 8 pass with an AC and got a 'bait and switch' to Rouge with no options. Some of us have to travel (it's not for vacation) and when we do and have paid for and expected a certain level of service (which I felt was fair and competitive with AC) and suddenly you are still paying the same price but the level of service comfort and even safety has dropped dramatically I can't feel but that I got bait and switched.

Purchased Business Class Toronto to Las Vegas horrible surprise. Very uncomfortable. We had to hold iPads to watch the entertainment. Staff advised to hang on headrest in front of us. iPad fell and spilled drinks several times. Paid for business class for extra comfort very surprised of smaller seat than usual Air Canada business class.

Flew from Jamaica on a Boeing 767 good headroom pleasant crew but horrible placing of the 'press for service button' on the armrest meant constant and irritable sounds of sometimes very loud multiple alarms going off. Even the crew were upset and they had to put up with it going and coming! If you can fly a different airplane I will definitely avoid the 767s.

After booking my flight to Disneyland in August 2013 we had a fabulous vacation. Tired and hungry we (the group of 9 of us) boarded our flight in LA to Vancouver with a dead cell phone fully anticipating being able to charge it on the plane. To my surprise the flight had no way of charging my phone nor did we have video to occupy our 3 hour long flight with our knees in the back of the seats of other unlucky passengers in front of us. My 9 year old son also had his knees touching the seat in front of him and a seat in the face as the other uncomfortable passenger tilted their seat back in hopes of finding some extra space. The flight crew were insistent on asking us how we were enjoying the flight numerous times. It got annoying. Fortunately we had bought snacks to prepare us for the dinner we would miss during the flight and thankful we did because we weren't even offered so much as a bag of peanuts. As we were flying internationally we needed to fill out declaration cards. Someone didn't stock them on the flight so we had to fight our way through the small table outside of customs to fill out our declaration cards. This could have occupied some of the boring time we spent on the flight looking at the obvious hole in the seats where the video consoles had been removed. The good news was it gave us a great place to put our hands on so we could attempt to nap on our forearms. Oh and to hold onto when we landed. Fortunately we had wifi for our ipad! This was a saving grace - we tried to connect no luck. This was when they came over the system to proudly tell us we could use the wifi for free and hopefully we had previously downloaded their app to view inflight movies. Much to our surprise the wifi would only work within their app. But no worries we could pay 10.00 to use a complimentary ipad that had said downloaded app on it. I had never heard of Rouge before but I do now. I suggest you do not fly them. If I wanted to fly in a cattle car I would have booked through a cheaper carrier. Shame on you Air Canada! Shame on you!

April 24 AC 7971. It is hard to imagine what management thinks about when they make decisions totally focused on the bottom line rather than customer service. So with service now inferior flight comfort at an all time low then why use AC? I was loyal but no longer. After a series of awful trips horrible service and basically no compensation then I will now be an airline shopper. I get they want to make money and I support that but Service and Comfort are what count. Rouge is just awful it is like a charter flight with higher prices. Plus with no entertainment unless you have an Apple device they don't tell you that so I wasted a few hours trying to download their entertainment onto my PC laptop. Worked out better as I spent the time reading. They launch this ridiculously confusing distinction program which I still have no idea what it is for! PS if you are going to Europe try Swiss or Lufthansa both offer great service and comfort.