Let’s take a break from the coronavirus headlines for a brief look at my recent Air Canada flight in business class from Toronto to Los Angeles.
Air Canada really impressed me with service, comfort, and meals on what felt like a longhaul international flight but was really only a five-hour transborder flight.
The 787-9 business class cabin is arranged in a 1-2-1 configuration with comfortable reverse herringbone seats.
The crew was on the young side, quite attentive, quite friendly, and also very professional.
Amenity kits were offered, as were mattress pads and a thick comforter.
Dinner included mixed nuts, a tuna appetizer, a main course (I stuck to fish and chose salmon), cheese, fruit, a puff pasty, and cappuccino. Seriously…talk about a lot of food. And each course tasted great.
But there was one thing that really annoyed me on this flight, I’m not going to lie. Take a close look at the flight map in the dessert picture above. That’s right, it took more than half of the flight to complete the meal service!
My goodness, that is far too long for a five-hour journey. The crew were great, the cabin was full…I’m not sure if this is just how service flows on Air Canada are or whether this was anomaly, but it was unacceptably long. And it’s not like meal service started late and was then served quickly. Meal service started shortly after takeoff and there were long delays between courses. I entertained myself with a couple movies. But if you are flying from Toronto to London, a flight of similar length, be prepared to skip meal service or simply spend the majority of your flight eating dinner.
I would not hesitate to fly Air Canada again…it did so many things well. But meals should be served more quickly…no one wants to spend three hours eating dinner on a five-hour flight. I’ll offer many more details and photos in my full trip report.
The real win here is the business lounge in Toronto. Sit down meal service with excellent food.
Agreed. More on that tomorrow…
Nice photos. But agreed about the meal taking too long.
Was it a 787-8 or 787-9? If you could add that in your full report. Minor thing but reports that just say “777”, “787” or “A330” but without the type sometimes sparks AvNerd rage 🙂
It was a 787-9. I actually deliberately left it off for SEO purposes, but the full report will always refer to it as 787-9. 😉
Air Tahiti Nui just made the world’s longest flight with paying passengers. The flight wasn’t full and they didn’t make the customary stop in Los Angeles.
https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/coronavirus-worlds-longest-flight/index.html
I recently did the reversed route (redeye) and totally impressed. It was a short but lovely flight. I’d do it again in a heartbeat. 🙂
https://firstofly.com/2020/03/02/air-canada-business-class-787-9-los-angeles-to-toronto/
Probably too many other variables at play but my meal service was very quick on last year’s ICN-YYZ flight. It was a 777-300, not sure if they have more staff or they show a little hustle because everyone wants to get to sleep…
You have the option of receiving your meal right after you take off and you get the whole meal at once. You’re basically done in 45 min. Check it out next time
I flew AC business class on a 787 from Toronto to Dubai – 14 hours nonstop- several times in 2016 – 2018. It is the best layout I found for privacy, service was excellent as well as food. Can only recommend.