Air Canada

Quickly loosing respect for this airline who seem to find or create loopholes to punish passengers for any kind of loyalty. I have status (Star Alliance Gold) and have issues every time I fly - from check-in staff being rude and to lying about seat availability for windows / exit rows on flights that have empty seats in both categories when you actually squeeze into your assigned middle seat and the limits for when food is free / paid for never seems to include delays on the tarmac - even when they are 5-6 hours long. They changed the rules last year to achieve status and after it was achieved... they changed the rules and benefits again so upgrades that were free in January cost $1000 for Europe flights in February - it's like they have no respect for passengers.

April 29 2014 AC 8534 Thunder Bay to Toronto. AC 610 Toronto to Halifax May 2 2014. AC 619 Halifax to Toronto. AC 8545 Toronto to Thunder. I just had the most miserable trip to Halifax from Thunder Bay with Air Canada. I flew from Thunder Bay to Toronto in the most uncomfortable seats imaginable in the back row while the plane was full with Air Canada staff flying in their aisle seats. In Toronto apparently paying for your seat is not enough. I did not have a pre-booked seat so that meant I was a second class citizen due no courtesy or respect from the Air Canada ticket attendant who didn't even want to speak to me until everyone else was on the plane. While I flew in a seat marked "Crew" in the back of the plane in the middle seat again the flight was full of Air Canada staff. I have flown my last flight with them.

ZRH-YYZ on an A330. Pros: Seat was very comfortable in terms of cushion width and leg room (though I understand the seats tend to be a bit larger on the A330 than other AC aircraft). Flight was on time aircraft was clean FAs were friendly enough. Cons: Food was downright awful - main meal was very dry pasta with red sauce snack before landing was a completely flavorless chicken wrap. IFE had decent selection but played a 2-minute run of advertisements before playing each selection. Comes across as very tacky. Overall a fairly average long-haul economy flight.

YYZ-LHR was rebooked by BA on to this flight as their flight was cancelled due to a bird strike. Check-in very straightforward. Used the Maple Leaf lounge in Terminal 1 close to the E gates. Spacious comfortable lounge but no hot options for breakfast apart from a very sticky oatmeal porridge. Flight was on a B767 with a herring bone 1-1-1 configuration. It felt both spacious and private. The crew were engaging and very friendly and nothing was too much trouble. The breakfast omelette was rather nice. IFE of a good quality but using the headphones was fiddly because you had to put on the sponge ear covers yourself! Seats are lie flat and quite comfortable-managed a nap of a couple of hours. The serving of lunch was delayed by some turbulence over the Atlantic. The Captain was very reassuring especially as he asked the FAs to be seated as well for about 30 mins. Good choice of champagne and 2 whites and 3 reds. There was a choice of 3 mains-all looked tasty. Arrival was shambolic because of the immigration computer glitch-baggage was waiting when I got to the carousel. Generally very impressed with my first experience of AC Executive Class.

We took two fights one from Calgary to Frankfurt and one from Heathrow back to Calgary. Both flights were fantastic. Staff at check-in and onboard were friendly and courteous. We had many choices for meals black cod and a fatty cut of lamb were not prepared to our taste. The beef and the pasta were much tastier dishes. Thankfully fresh salad/balsamic dressing has been part of the business meal for a few years. Tasty desserts/cheese plates ensure that no one will starve. The pods are a comfortable way to travel and we always manage to have 4-5 hours of sleep. There's ample storage for shoes iPads etc plus a big bin overhead. There was a large selection of old and new movies to watch. The kit with travel amenities is fantastic on the way to Europe but of poor quality on the way back.

Flew SYD-YVR business class on 777-200. The seat configuration is not great for couples my husband and I sat in the middle two seats and were divided by a partition and the angle of the seats meant that to speak to each other we both had to turn sideways and backwards. I could eyeball the person across the aisle more easily but the distance was such you couldn't have a quiet conversation thus still not satisfactory when traveling with someone. Not a lot of room to place personal items in easy reach during the flight. Service was excellent there was plenty of courteous and helpful staff. Food was nice 4 choices of main course I enjoyed my fish also the entree prawn salad. I have to agree with previous reviewer the head phones disposable foam ear pieces were very tricky to stretch over the phones easily torn and easily lost when taking the head phones off. Flat bed was good but I didn't sleep well sinuses didn't cope well with the aircon. Would use Air Canada again.

This concerns Air Canada's Business Class Service on its international flights. Air Canada has introduced its new seat configurations on its 777 aircrafts. It is a marked change from the "pods" that it uses on its 767s. Regrettably the new configurations are horrible. My complaints are not so much about having to sit side by side someone in the rows but rather its the amenities and the way in which the seats work altogether. The flat bed seats are most uncomfortable. The seats do not accommodate one from moving their feet because once the bed is flat your feet go into an area that does not allow for any movement. You must physically remove one foot at a time to adjust your resting position. Headphones in business class are awful. They provide ear bud style head sets but they are cheap and sound quality is awful. You can request an over the ear headphone which they have on board but do not offer unless asked. Sound quality is better but when they deliver the units to you there are sponge coverings that must be affixed over each ear speaker. This task is incredibly difficult! The sponge coverings do not fit well over the oval speakers and the sponge has a tendency to rip! The controls for the seats are located in two locations - one on the table that is used to rest your arms. This of course means unintentional adjustments are made to your seat settings when your arms rest on the controls. The second set of controls are not easy to find at first and are only usable when the seat is in a flat bed mode. I also had difficulty having the bed go into a flat bed mode. The seats seam to get jammed on settings that would not allow the bed to fully extend and it took some time and multiple pressing of buttons to convince the seat to fully extend. Last beef concerns the tray table. Whoever designed this table should be shot! At first the table seems reasonable: press a release button and pop goes the table. Fold it out and you are in business. Now the tricky part - putting the table away. Folding is ok but then you have to align three very faintly marked arrows and then figure out a way to force the table back into its locked position. I couldn't do it and required assistance each and every time. It was interesting to hear from the flight crew that there have been many many complaints about these new seats. Air Canada however is not taking any steps to address these concerns which is too bad. The crew mentioned that the seating was an after thought and that they were not asked for any advice or input on the selection of the consoles. Too bad. I will be going out of my way not to use Air Canada because of this uncomfortable experience. Other airlines like Cathay and Singapore have far better seats and amenities. Use them.

AC138 Vancouver-Ottawa. Usual AC crush on boarding with lots of people with too much carry-on no enforcement of carry on policy and insufficient space in aircraft cabin design for carry-on seems to be a universal feature of AC that you have to fight for bin space. Cabin crew managed to pack everyone's stuff in. 6 row seating and only 2 washrooms for about 160 people no doubt maximizes AC revenue when combined with overbooking - but no room to move in the cabin two people can't pass in the aisles without standing on the aisle seat passenger. Seats cramped. Flight safety briefings are now followed by full volume ads for BMW and credit card products. Inflight service then began by cabin staff selling earphones. Chose not to purchase later realized this a wise choice in view of limited inflight entertainment options. Food service - if you're asleep when they come round don't worry - if the cart doesn't wake you by banging your elbow as it comes by you will be shouted at until you do wake up and a menu card is wafted under your nose. AC wouldn't want to miss a sale just because you're sleeping! Being now awake looked at menu which offers "selection of wines" - turns out this means red or white one brand each. Ordered pieces of stiff cardboard and plastic paid full bar prices. In future AC would have to be the only carrier on a route before I'd fly them again and I would never recommend them. I remember when AC was a lot better than this.

I arrived at LGA 3 hours before my flight and from check in to boarding-all went smoothly. My original flight was AC729 at 1530 H I didn't want to lounge in the airport on a rainy day so the PSA allowed me to take earlier flight (AC7423) to avoid long wait in the airport. The ground crew and the entire flight crew were very nice.

Miami - Toronto - Copenhagen 24th April 2014. AC917 - A321 AC882 - B763-300. My family and I went to Florida on vacation. We flew out with Lufthansa - excellent service. On the way back we flew with Air Canada. I had pre- selected seats close to the wing (row 27) the B763 has 2-3-2 seating setup so selecting 2x2 was perfect for us. When we checked in at Miami airport we were told our seating had changed for the flight between Toronto and Copenhagen. Our seating was now: me my wife and my son (age 10) moved to the middle section in row 35 and my daughter (age 5) placed on row 14. I tried to talk to 3 different staff members in Miami airport none was interested in helping us. One suggested we could find a passenger ourselves to swap with. When we were boarding they realized it probably wasn't a good idea to place a 5 year old alone and swapped the seating. I am shocked about the lack of service. What shocked me the most is that I tried to talk to 7 different Air Canada staff members. On top of that (which just is minor compared to all the other): Their "continental breakfast" was a dry banana cake. Their entertainment system was so good that I could hear both my own movie and the movie of the passenger next to me. Both planes were dirty.