Home > Air Canada > 2005 > Review

Taken January 2005 from London, England (Heathrow Airport) - LHR to Calgary, AB (Calgary International Airport) - YYC

Flight out to Calgary from London Heathrow on AC853 was excellent! My first long haul flight! and to Canada too.

Aircaft used was a 767-300ER, C-FMWV. It was absolutley spotless. Toilets cleanest I've ever seen before. The crew were fantastic! nothing was too much trouble for them. They were telling me about where to go in Calgary and what things to do! The fight had very few people on it which meant they were able to concentrate more on the passangers as indivduals. Mean was nice, chicken and potatoes with carrots and brocoli. Plenty of drinks available, hot and cold and of course completely unlimited. No hot chocolate though... :- (

Hot towels were a nice touch! Ice cream after main meal was lovely, and the pizza snack and cookies before we commenced our descent was very much appriciated. Plenty of blankets and pillows available too. Flight departed early and arrived early!

Service was very personal, they even had Air Canada staff to meet us at the gate and take us through to immigration and security. Very helpful and much appriciated! Well Done :-) Canadian immigration people at Calgary were honestly the rudest people I've ever met, but that's another story...

I hope Air Canada don't end up anymore bankrupt as they're a good airine and the staff work very hard.

A few bad points are that the IFE is very poor, they should have Personal TV's for the length of the flight. The radio was terrrible. Unfortunately the Air Canada magazine was pretty boring too however the service makes up for it.

On the way back we had an A330-300, C-GFAH a much newer aircraft. Seats were not as nice as 767, and felt like they had a brick inside them in the middle. The flight was very full and so the crew could not be as helpful as before unfortunately. The flight attendants on this flight were considerably older, more "senior" shall we say to put it nicely. Some appeared to have an attitude problem and were 'stale'. The food was OK, salad very nice. They had a good range of newspapers, but unfortunatley ran out very quickly. Drinks were not as plentiful on this flight. CBC news update was good I thought!

Although the aircraft being much newer it still did not have personal seatback TV's which is poor. Maybe they intend to add them in the future as there is a space for them, but it's filled with fabric. lol. It looks a bit naff to be honest.

We left Calgary slightly late because there was a problem starting up the left number one engine which was not very reassuring to know just before you start a 8 hour crossing on the plane! the pilot kept us updated and we made up the time no problem in the air to arrive in London on time.

Whilst we waited for a late running 767 that was occupying our gate to depart at LHR we listened to Celine Dion's song that she's recorded for Air Canada.

Genereally, Air Canada are a good airline and would reccomend them!