Air Canada and Aspire have teamed up to open a beautiful new lounge at Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport (YTZ) that resembles its café concept at Toronto Pearson.
Air Canada Café YTZ – Popular Lounge Concept Now Available At Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport
I’ve raved about the Air Canada Café in Toronto Pearson (YYZ), which I find to be an amazing lounge concept with high-quality food and drinks prepared to go along with superb barista-made coffee and fresh-squeezed juice. That concept is now spreading to Toronto City with a new lounge in partnership between Air Canada and Aspire (Swissport).
The new 4,271-foot lounge, located in the domestic departures area, will include seating for 133 as well as:
- Self-serve hot and cold buffet curated by local chefs with fresh baked breads and pastries
- Hot and cold grab-n’-go selections
- Central bar with complimentary beverages and premium for-purchase beverages
There will be meeting space, power outlets, wireless mobile phone charging, and restrooms.
It is not clear barista-made coffee will be available, but I doubt it based upon the video below, which shows a high-end, but fully-automatic coffee machine.
Welcome to the new Air Canada Café @BBishopAirport, in collaboration with @aspirelounge, featuring more of what you love, like a chef curated buffet, and more of what you need, like high-speed Wi-Fi. More comfort & convenience await. https://t.co/4yRvLtPGNN pic.twitter.com/YRA1ZrHHjX
— Air Canada (@AirCanada) June 1, 2023
Who Will Have Access The Aspire – Air Canada Cafe?
The following travelers will have access:
- Aeroplan elite members
- 50K
- 75K
- Super Elite Status
- Star Alliance Gold members
- Aeroplan premium co-brand cardholders
- Travelers connecting to an Air Canada business class ticket
This Is About Porter Too
Air Canada’s buildup in YTZ, where it currently operates flights to Montreal and plans service to Ottawa later this year, comes as Porter ramps up service out of Toronto Pearson using jet aircraft to fly on longer routes. For years, Porter has been dominant at Toronto City Airport, offering Q400 turboprop service to a number of Canadian and US cities.
Porter used to have a gate area “lounge” for all passengers at YTZ with complimentary food and snacks, but that ended in 2018.
Only turboprops are permitted at Billy Bishop Airport.
CONCLUSION
Air Canada is expanding its Café concept with a new lounge at Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport. The new lounge opens today and will offer Air Canada premium passengers a meal and drink prior to their flight, which can be consumed in the lounge or taken to go.
Will Porter respond with a lounge of its own?
(H/T: One Mile At A Time)
YTZ is a very convenient airport with being minutes from the financial district and downtown Toronto.
I’m glad that Porter is forcing AC to use YTZ more and led to this. Looks like being a HON is even going to be of use here.
I’d love to see Air Canada expand this concept to YVR Vancouver and YUL Montreal!
They are! Montreal is opening a cafe in 2024, followed by Vancouver in 2025. Great concept so I’m glad Air Canada is expanding the product. This is on top of a new lounge type opening at Pearson later this year and Air Canada developing a new business class for it’s A321 xlr and 787/777 fleet.
They are also looking at changing the cabin on their regional fleet but not many details have been provided. Exciting time for Air Canada and Canadian aviation in general!
The international side Porter uses is set up like a lounge, though you have to pay for anything at the quite decent bar/restaurant. The terminal is very, very comfortable and well set up for keeping passengers charged up and relaxed.
Even though the cafe is created by Air Canada I read that the cafe can be accessed using Dragon Pass and other lounge programs. So Porter passengers could access the lounge if they have one of the other lounge programs. Too bad it’s only domestic side: I spent 10 minutes looking for the lounge in the USA departure area until I figured it out — much to my chagrin