Air Canada

It is a nicer airlines than most of US based carriers. The services in general are better and the equipment and seat spacing are superior.
The issue is their inconsistency in treating Star Alliance Gold passengers. I occasionally got upgraded to business class to /​from Toronto/​New York. However, if I don’t get upgraded, I would be stuck at the very back rows of the airplane. The only good part of being Star Alliance Gold is giving us the zone 2 boarding priority so we have a good chance of getting overhead space for our luggage.
It would be nice if they can give us upgrade to the front of the economy class without fees automatically. (We are charged $ if we requested moving to «yellow» section at the check in kiosk)

Terrible airline. I was nearly late because their damn gate is so freaking far from the security check points. On top of that I got back home 3 hours later because they decided to turn around and check some faulty cargo door, and the real funny part was that there was nothing wrong with the cargo door. I swear I only get delays and problems with Air Canada. I try my hardest to avoid them because they’re just so full of problems and charge you an arm and a leg for substandard service. And the sad part is they can get away with this because we don’t have alternatives. Oh yeah and avoid Terminal 1 they purposely create lines and bottlenecks and making you late for your flight because the stupid terminal can’t handle the capacity. Rather than hiring more people they do stupid things like create bottlenecks. The terminal 1 and Air Canada all share the same area and it’s an absolute disaster and a mess.

I have just had the worst day of my life thanks to the incompetences of this airline. Not only did they extend a 4 hr layover to 12! hr without batting an eye. They lost my luggage and gave me the old «ops» explanation.
Find another airline. Anyone. Air Canada will only lead to headaches.

Air Canada is bad news!
10 minutes after the flight was supposed to start boarding they made announcement there be an hour and 15 minute delay
They had to use our plane to go to a different city
And there are no w flying a plane in from a different city for us
That’s what you get when you deal with an airline that has little or no competition
Welcome to the Socialist Republic of Canada

Despite the negative sentiment on flying on Air Canada (AC) I feel they are one of the better airlines when flying within North America (International there are a lot of other options so they have a lot more competition). Lets face it folks if you are flying within Canada your choices are limited to two carriers. If you expand to North American you get a few more options but my experience with AC puts it on top of the heap.
Among the things that one takes for granted are individual monitors on many flights (not common) which are a boon if you want to kill time on a flight and forgot to download a movie on your mobile device for in flight viewing. The leg room is comparable to most other carriers in economy and now they even offer flat bed option on some transcontinental flights i.e. YYZ to/​from LAX, SFO, YVR, YYC and YUL to/​from YVR and YYC (for an up charge over regular business class) which goes a long way if you want catch up on sleep or just put your feet up (pun intended). Food was decent when I had a chance to dine and their lounges are much better than other airlines IMO. Thankfully they also offered decent Italian Red Wine as well in addition to the expected Canadian Red.
International flights that I experienced on few occasions were decent as well. Nothing special but I wasn’t expecting much either.
The ground staff can be hit or miss so I would recommend one try to limit interaction and hope you don’t have to deal with them.
Coupled with the loyalty program of Aeroplan I think its a very decent option to fly within the great North and south of the 49^th Parallel.

Iv just had a rare experience with ac. I have flown frequently with ac in the past and have never had anything positive to say until now. I was not travelling tonight but my mother was or is right now.
I got to the counter and the lady at the counter was phenomenal. I think her name was Diana. She was patient, professional, prompt and so polite. My mother always has too much luggage and it’s always over the weight limit. Diana handled my mom perfectly. She had been working since 5am and didn’t show any sign of tiredness. Ac needs more ppl like her.
Thank you for the great service !!

The customer service representatives at the Pearson airport location need a HUGE revamp on handling crisis situations, not to mention in depth diversity training .
They were dishonest. Impatient. Unwilling to answer necessary questions and downright rude .
A supervisor. I wish I’d gotten her name. Tells standby passengers «I get to decide who flys and who doesn’t, so you’ll just have to deal with it .»
I barely picked my face up off the floor after hearing that. Extremely inappropriate .
Frustration levels were high because most of us had been delayed in Toronto for an additional unplanned 24 hours, because of weather conditions .
STILL I literally never witnessed any customers even raise their voices let alone do anything to warrant a reaction as unprofessional as that.

Toronto, Ontario: An alliance is only as good as the partners’ commitment to excellence. When the two partners inculcate a culture whereby the individual employees’ first response is to disavow the actions of the other partner, there is no excellence, there is no customer service; the two entities might as well sever ties and compete head-​to-​head…
Air Canada and United Airlines: your partnership is a disgrace. The first response we got from each was to put the blame and responsibility to fix errors on the other.
We had a United booking agent fail to complete a re-​scheduling of a cancelled flight; Air Canada’s response was «not our problem»…
We had an Air Canada booking agent disregard everything they were told and their «solution» to the problem was to split my wife and I up, me to Cleveland, my wife to Montréal…
When United tried to fix this, the Air Canada ticket rep took so long, we had to abandon the split trip because the long periods on hold caused us to miss the split flights… and then had one of the two seats on a subsequent flight sold before Air Canada provided confirmation.
United’s counter person grew so frustrated he finally booked us on a totally different airline, just so we could finally leave Toronto.
Our problem didn’t start with United’s booking mistake; it started when two corporate giants placed ill considered corporate profit strategies ahead of policies and procedures for their employees to use in executing their jobs in such a manner as to foster customer service, not kill it.

Air Canada Rouge is so pathetic. 1 they charge $ 25 for each suitcase. 2 their flight attendants are rude. 3 this seats hardly have any room for a tall person to fit their legs it is very painful. 4 I’m used to at least getting a small little snack which you don’t get on this airline all you get is a drink. I really had to go to the bathroom and one of the flight attendants ask me how bad I had to go about 3 times before somebody had to step in and say let her use the bathroom. I will never ever take this airline ever again I should have stuck with WestJet.

Expensive with nothing special. Charges for everything absolutely nothing is a free. It doesn’t make for a comfortable flight.

Tried to use my air canada credit from a flight that I couldn’t make it the credit was on 800 $ and I get only 300 $
Poor service

This airline is a joke. Their under-​maintained (a water tank had a big leak– what if that had happened over the Atlantic) 767 left my flight stuck in Amsterdam for four hours then left just in time to miss my connecting flight to Seattle. When I got to Toronto, the Airport was a nightmare of security check points and they lost my baggage then nearly made me miss my consolation flight to Vancouver (where I honestly don’t want to vo because it’s not my house). Two star rating because the staff are very helpful and polite, lubricating you with a hotel room to stay for an hour or a $ 10 food voucher while they ram it in deeper and deeper.
Edit: Now stuck on the tarmac at Toronto in a 777 with engine issues. New delay is expected at 30 min.

I am writing this review while sitting on the plane using Wifi. Praise the lord* for this modern day miracle!!! Walking on water is no doubt spectacular, but did Baby J himself ever fly!!! I bet five bucks that ain’t in the bible. How in the world did people who eat mayonnaise figure out how to get a chunk of metal and dead dinosaur juice thousands of feet into the air and keep it there for hours on end? This in and of itself warrants five stars.
* scientists and engineers

Even with all these hate with flying Air Canada but I had such a good experience flying the new 787 Dreamline Fleet from Zurich to Toronto.
Entertainment System had a total upgrade compares to the older fleet: 16X9 screen perfect for movie watching! Interactive menu even let you play games against fellow passenger. Menu for your flight also available in the system and the description is a little more than Chicken or Pasta…
More leg room great for long haul. The window shades are semi-​opaque and letting a little of sunlight coming through with different shade of blues.
There are only limited routing that 787 flying and hopefully more of the older planes would be replaced by 787

I stood in line for well over 2.5 hours this morning, waiting to see a ticketing agent for Air Canada because «my flight was cancelled»…Oh, except the flight wasnt really cancelled and Air Canada just bumped me off that flight… Yet, they had the audacity to send me an email to say the flight had been cancelled, while I was getting in line to go through security… Like people don’t know to check and see they’re being lied to…
While waiting, I managed to get on the phone to get a better flight than the one they «automatically» rebooked me on. And when I confirmed that they simply changed equipment and bumped me off the flight (i.e., it wasn’t going to be a «weather» reason they would use to explain this away), I asked them to compensate me for the inconvenience. I asked the person on the phone, I asked the Air Canada employees managing the lines, if there was a customer service agent that could handle this matter, and their answer was to see the ticketing agent. This was after I’ve reiterated many times that I didn’t need to see a ticketing agent to rebook, I’ve already been rebooked. «It’ll be a short wait» they claim.
Yeah, right. 2.5 hours later, I made it to the ticketing agent. Care to take a guess as to what his response after I explained the situation was? Yup: «this isn’t really part of my job. They shouldn’t have made you wait in line for an hour and should have sent you inside about this.» I told him an hour is a generous estimate. He was nice enough to get people on the phone to see what he can do about it. He mentioned that he was surprised that no one else has stopped by from my flight, probably because they got the email, took the rebooked option, printed a new ticket and went on their merry way. And Air Canada never bothered to tell them they were owed any compensation for their inconvenience.
Was it worth it? Yes and no. No, what they compensated is not a very large voucher. But yes, it was worth standing in line so that they at least paid me something. In the meantime, maybe me taking up yet another 15 – 20 minutes of the counter time pissed off another customer who will write them a bad review so that people take pause when considering if they should fly with Air Canada or not.
I *really* hope they value and treat their customers better moving forward.

I can’t give zero stars but would if I could. Longest line in the customer service line for over 2 ½ hrs just to go to Ohare. They can’t help you at the gate… why not, every other airport and airline can make standby reservations at the gates… this is soooo frustrating and the other passengers in line experienced the same slow customer service… Good grief!!!

Air Canada is one of the two nationwide airlines that offer non-​charter flights domestically and internationally. I recently took an air Canada Rouge flight to San Diego.
I didn’t know what air Canada Rouge is. Googling didn’t yield much but it’s some sort of division by air Canada. Well I believe it’s a discount version of air Canada. The plane is not new. Seats seem small. Flight attendants are pleasant.
The one big irony on the flight is that they offer entertainment, which you need an iPad or iPhone to access through their app on WiFi but there are no outlets on the plane. I don’t mind that except there is no choice to fly to San Diego from Toronto except with air Canada Rouge. I wish they have more information on their website so I would charged my phone before I got on the 5 hour flight. Btw if you don’t have either apple product, you can rent an iPad for $ 10.
Normally I would say 3 star for most air Canada flights. The lack of information on their website loses one star

You have improved, Air Canada.
I guess long-​haul flights generally equate to poor experiences, since many passengers would be grumpy that their flights are 10+ hours. I flew with Air Canada in the past few years to Edmonton, Calgary, San Francisco, Las Vegas, and Vancouver, and I only had one poor experience from these five flights (and that was thru Air Canada Rouge).
Some of the planes now have wifi, and I’ve been lucky to get one from Toronto to Vancouver, which I managed to put to good use. Luck of the draw I guess!
The only drawbacks were that if you’re not flying long haul, you don’t get any free perks. No free headsets, food, etc; only drinks. When I flew China Airlines from Taipei to Hong Kong, I managed to get a free meal despite the 90 minute flight. It’s definitely something Air Canada should consider, perhaps for 4+ hour flights.

I despise this airline, with a passion which is hard to describe.
Flight to Nashville was an hour late, leaving Nashville an hour plus late.
Bathrooms FILTHY. Thankfully, I didn’t drink anything before I boarded the plane so I didn’t have to use the disgusting washroom — which I could smell from a distance away — not to mention the report I received from Spouse on the state of the lavatory.
You can’t say anything while you’re on board — God forbid you’ll be charged with air rage. I do everything I can to avoid flying Air Canada — for good reason. N-​A-​S-​T-​Y. Torture.

Inflexible and Rude.
I fly for business and due to a multi stop schedule had to use Air Canada. They load by zone and due to having to keep my bag close to me for my insulin and Chemo meds I asked if I could load earlier than my Zone 5, last one, so I could keep my bag close to me. «NOPE, We load by zone you go last»
4 flights in 8 days and same answer everytime. These are the most miserable SOBs on the planet and seem to find motivation to make each and every customers day as tough and difficult as humanly possible. If you can take Westjet as they actually care about their customers and have some humanity. I’ll avoid Air Canada if at all possible on all future flights.
I gave one star because they have some, few but all the same, some air flight attendants that are very nice.