Air Canada, a partner of Virgin Australia, offers four weekly flights from Brisbane to Vancouver and up to 10 weekly Sydney-Vancouver services. Air Canada will also soon commence Auckland-Vancouver flights.
Air Canada used to fly its Boeing 777-200LR on the Sydney-Vancouver route, but all three of the airline’s routes to Australia & New Zealand are now operated by Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners. On both aircraft types, Air Canada offers Economy, Premium Economy and Business Class, which Air Canada calls “Signature Class”. The Signature Class seats are more or less the same on both aircraft types, as I recently got to experience on a domestic trip within Canada.
In this review, I’ll share with you my experience flying with Air Canada from Montreal to Calgary on a Boeing 777-200LR in Signature (Business) Class. As I continued my journey from Calgary to Vancouver on a Boeing 787-9, I’ll also include a few comments about the Business Class seats on that aircraft type in this article.
I was supposed to fly from Montreal to Calgary on a Friday evening, staying overnight in Alberta’s largest city, then continuing from Calgary to Vancouver the following afternoon.
Unfortunately, at the time I took this trip in July 2022, it was at the height of the summer travel chaos that was affecting airlines and airports all over North America and Europe. Many flights were getting delayed and cancelled, airports were chaotic and there were lost bags strewn all over the place. (Australian airlines also haven’t been immune from the recent chaos.) So, although I intentionally did not check a bag, things still didn’t exactly go to plan…
Flight Details
| Flight number | AC325 |
| Route | Montreal (YUL) to Calgary (YYC) |
| Aircraft type | Boeing 777-200LR |
| Class of travel | Business |
| Seat number | 7K |
| On-time performance | We arrived 6 hours and 50 minutes late |
| Star rating |  |
The route
Flight Cost
I redeemed my United MileagePlus miles to fly Air Canada Business Class from Montreal to Vancouver, via Calgary. This ticket cost me 27,500 United miles + exactly AUD85 in taxes.
Airport Experience
Having heard about the chaos at Canadian airports, I arrived at Montreal’s Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport a bit earlier than I normally would have for a domestic flight – around 18:30 for my 21:15 flight. The airport was crowded, but luckily as a Business Class passenger I was able to access all the priority queues. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Air Canada’s priority check-in had no line, and it only took around 15 minutes to clear security through the priority lane.
Unfortunately, when I checked in I was advised that my flight to Calgary had been delayed until 00:40 the next morning. Not great, but there was nothing I could do so I headed up to the Maple Leaf Club and had some dinner.
Air Canada has three Maple Leaf Club lounges in Montreal – one for domestic departures, one for US departures and another for passengers travelling to other international destinations. I headed to the domestic lounge, which was fine and had some nice runway views.
Complimentary self-service drinks including wine, beer and spirits, as well as a buffet with a light selection of snacks were available in the lounge. At each table, there was also a QR code that you could use to order a plated dish from the kitchen to be served directly to your table for free. (I’m specifically pointing at that this service was complimentary because this isn’t always the case in North American airline lounges, particularly in the USA!)
I tried several of the snacks on offer. This was the Thai chicken curry:
Of course, I also tried the local speciality – a Montreal smoked meat sandwich.
The sandwich was nice, but certainly didn’t compare to the “real deal” that I’d eaten the day before at a local Montreal restaurant!
Unfortunately, my time in the lounge was short-lived as they closed for the evening at 9pm. Everyone was kicked out, even though there were several delayed flights that evening that hadn’t yet boarded.
After waiting for several hours in the terminal with several hundred other delayed passengers, our operating aircraft finally pulled into the gate at around 00:30. At 01:15, I received a text message from Air Canada to say that boarding had started, but this was not the case and it didn’t actually get underway until 01:45. Priority boarding was called and strictly enforced, which was nice at least.
Sadly, that wasn’t the end of the delays. Once everyone was on board, the Service Director (Air Canada’s title for the purser) announced that there were no pilots available in Montreal who were qualified to fly a Boeing 777 and that we were waiting for two pilots to arrive on another delayed flight from Toronto. Eventually, just before 3am, some pilots showed up and announced that we’d be underway shortly – to the relief of many on board.
We started pushing back at 03:15, or six hours behind schedule. Shortly after, there was a noticeable “thud” and the pushback was stopped. After sitting there for a while longer, the captain informed us that the pushback tug has broken and that they had to get maintenance to check that there was no damage to the aircraft before they could start the engines. This took yet another 40 minutes to resolve and eventually we took off at at 04:11. By this time, the sun was already rising over Montreal!
The Hard Product
Air Canada has a 1-2-1 reverse herringbone layout in Signature Class on its Boeing 777-200LR, offering direct aisle access to every passenger.
The cabin felt slightly dated but well maintained, and the seat itself was very comfortable. I was seated in 7K, in the last row of the forward Business Class cabin.
The seat converts into a fully lie-flat bed and as this flight had essentially become an overnight flight, I put it to very good use after the dinner service was completed. I slept very comfortably until being woken up by the dulcet tones of the captain announcing “flight attendants, 30 minutes to landing”.
Had this been a longer overnight flight, such as to Australia, I’m sure I could have had a good night’s sleep in this seat.
There was a large in-flight entertainment screen with a good variety of content available. Unfortunately, my IFE system became unresponsive after a while and needed to be reset by the crew. Interestingly, this also happened on my following two Air Canada flights, so it seems there may be some reliability issues with the airline’s entertainment system!
Upon boarding, there was a water bottle, “CleanCare+” kit with a face mask and sanitiser wipes, noise-cancelling headphones, pillow, blanket and mattress cover at my seat – all welcome amenities for an overnight flight.
I’ll just mention here that there was no pre-departure drink service other than the bottle of water at my seat, and the headphones were collected 25 minutes before landing. I can understand why they do this (to prevent theft), but personally I find it quite annoying when airlines do this. For the last 25 minutes of the flight, as well as the taxi in to the gate, you’re left sitting there unable to hear anything on the in-flight entertainment system and wondering why the airline doesn’t trust you!
For the sake of comparison, this was my Air Canada Business Class seat on the next flight (to Vancouver) which was operated by a Boeing 787-9 – the same aircraft used on the airline’s Australia and New Zealand routes.
The Air Canada Boeing 787-9 has pretty much the same seats in the same configuration.
The only real difference between Signature Class on the two aircraft was that the 787-9 cabin felt a bit newer. (The Dreamliner cabin is also well known to have a higher humidity, which could make a difference on a long-haul flight.)
The Soft Product
The flight attendant mentioned that on a domestic redeye service, they would normally just serve breakfast at the end of the flight. But as the plane was catered for a scheduled 9.15pm departure, they served dinner immediately after take-off.
There were two dinner options:
- Chicken with apple and maple sauce, carrots and a quinoa and rice blend
- Gnocchi with cream sauce, peas, butternut squash and asparagus
I chose the chicken, which came with an appetizer of smoked tuna, potatoes, kale, mixed greens and a soy-ginger dressing. The appetizer was apparently a signature dish of Air Canada’s celebrity chef Antonio Park and was served with a roasted cauliflower salad and warm bread. A full bar service was also available.
The food was good quality, although it felt rather strange eating dinner while watching the sun rise over eastern Canada…
I passed on the dessert options of tiramisu or fruit as I was very ready to go to sleep after the meal. Tea, coffee, port wine and Baileys were also offered with dessert.
I’m definitely happy that I had booked Signature Class for this flight, not only for the lie-flat bed, but because I was starving by the time we left Montreal. All of the airport shops and restaurants in Montreal had closed by 10pm the previous evening, so there was no food available in the airport for the six hours prior to take-off. To make matters worse, for those in Economy, there was an announcement at the start of the flight that they only had a very (their emphasis) limited selection of food & beverages available for purchase.
The cabin crew on this flight led by Kathleen were very good. They were doing their best despite the horrible departure time and having to serve a completely full planeload of unhappy passengers! All of the cabin crew members (but not the Toronto-based pilots) spoke fluent English and French.
We landed in Calgary at 6.30am, around 7 hours late, and I was so late checking into the airport hotel that they’d already given away my prepaid room to somebody else.
As it happens, Canada does have Air Passenger Protection laws that mandate the payment of compensation to airline passengers in the case of major delays, flight cancellations or being denied boarding. As this delay was more than six hours, I may have ordinarily been entitled to CAD700 in compensation for this delay if Calgary was my final destination. Unfortunately, the booked destination on my ticket was Vancouver and I still made my original connecting flight to Vancouver on the Saturday afternoon – which “only” arrived around two hours late.
Air Canada Boeing 777-200LR Signature Class
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Airport Experience
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Hard Product
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Soft Product
Final thoughts
Clearly, this flight was not a great experience as it was heavily disrupted and arrived almost seven hours late. I did find it poor that Air Canada still closed its lounge at 9pm, leaving passengers to wait almost five hours in the terminal where all shops and restaurants were also closed. No food or drinks were provided by Air Canada during the delay, which kept creeping further and further into the night.
Other than that, the Air Canada Signature Class product was pretty good. The seat was very comfortable, and the on-board food and service were also good. I would be quite happy to fly this product again, including to or from Australia, once the chaotic summer 2022 travel season is over.
You can leave a comment on the Australian Frequent Flyer forum.
