Good evening all, my name is Alex, and today’s trip report will be..
An interesting one.
I’m flying from Toronto, Ontario, to Montreal, Quebec, on Air Canada’s Airbus A330-300,
in Business Class!
I originally booked this flight to try out Air Canada’s newer Business Class product
on the 777-300ER.
Unfortunately, it was switched a few weeks before the flight for an A330 with the older cabin.
Before heading to the gate, let’s check out Air Canada’s Maple Leaf lounge here in Toronto.
My first impression of the lounge, well, it’s huge.
It’s bright and open with high ceilings, and a ton of places to sit.
The food selection for dinnertime was pretty diverse, as well as a very wide array of beverages
to choose from.
Right as I sat down to eat, I got an email notification from Air Canada that my flight
had been delayed over two hours, from an original 6PM departure time to 8:20PM.
A bit of an inconvenience, sure, but I can think of far worse places to wait around!
All in all, Air Canada’s Toronto Maple Leaf Lounge was bright, clean, and a comfortable
place to relax.
Today’s aircraft is Charlie Golf Foxtrot Alpha Foxtrot, a 20-year-old Airbus A330-300.
At the time this was filmed, this was Air Canada’s only A330 in their new livery,
which was pretty lucky.
From that window, it’s a short walk over to our departure gate, D20, and this is where
things start to get interesting.
I got to the desk, and was told that I was the last one to board.
Cue the minor panic attack when I realized I was taking photos of the airplane for the last 10 minutes...
While walking down the bridge with a friendly Air Canada customer service agent though,
I was told that our original aircraft had actually been swapped with another A330.
Because of the delay, we were flying out tonight with just 17 people on the aircraft.
So here we are on board, with myself and a single other person in the Business Class cabin.
I picked seat 7A for this short hop to Montreal.
Later on, the pilots told me that they had seen me taking photos in the terminal, and
invited me up to the flight deck, while they finished fuelling the aircraft.
From what I was told, this airplane was supposed to fly from Toronto to Copenhagen, but they
had a water pump issue that prevented it from flying transatlantic.
Montreal, however is a maintenance base for Air Canada’s A330 fleet.
So they swapped Copenhagen with the original Montreal aircraft, and rebooked almost all
of the passengers on earlier flights, except for 8 of us.
I never thought to ask about rebooking, since I was perfectly happy in the lounge,
and that's how I ended up on a private Air Canada A330.
Now here was the really surprising part.
Right after I sat back down in my seat, a crew member came by and asked myself and the
other paying passenger in Business if they could move the other passengers scattered
throughout Economy up into Business with us.
Obviously, I said yes, and my fellow passenger agreed, and so a bunch of people on a late
evening flight to Montreal got a complimentary upgrade.
Air Canada’s older Business seats, or the “Classic Pod” as they call them, are a
bit out of date, but they’re still quite comfortable.
The seat folds fully flat, has a little shelf for drinks, and lots of space for a 6’8" flight reviewer!
The tray table folds out from the side of the seat, which has the seat controls and
a remote for the in-flight entertainment.
My only complaint about these seats is that it’s so tricky to look or even film out
the windows, as you can clearly see.
To Air Canada’s credit though, they completely fixed this in their newer Business cabin.
Without further ado, here is our very quick takeoff roll from Toronto-Pearson’s runway 06L.
Not long after takeoff, the crew came around with a plate of food and a bowl of warm nuts.
This was essentially an appetizer with some fruits, vegetables, cheese, and some salmon
on top of a cracker of some sort.
For an hour long flight, this wasn’t bad at all, and tasted pretty good!
The crew also came around with drinks and a basket of chocolates to choose from.
Following that, I had quite a bit of fun just walking around a totally empty cabin!
It’s one thing to walk around an empty plane on the ground, but another thing entirely
to do that in flight!
I also sat in a Premium Economy seat, and legroom-wise, this gets the Alex seal of approval.
Since the flight was so short, I won’t go over the in-flight entertainment system, but
with this cabin, it’s still the older version from the mid-2000s which runs pretty slowly.
I’ll link to one of my older videos in the description if you did want to get a better look.
Anyway, all too soon, we started our descent into Montreal, for a runway 24R arrival.
Overall, I’d say this was one of my most enjoyable experiences with Air Canada ever!
The crew on board were all very friendly and talkative, and as you heard on the taxi out,
made no secret just what a special flight this was.
I’m very lucky that I got to try out Air Canada’s "private" A330 service between Toronto
and Montreal just by pure chance.
It was quite the experience.
Air Canada’s A330 fleet will be reconfigured to the newer cabin standard eventually, but
in the meantime, their Classic Pod is comfortable and their onboard service in Business still stands out.
I also have to commend Air Canada for their gesture in upgrading the rest of the passengers on board.
Looking back on it, they (the cabin service director) likely wanted to give the rest of the crew a break.
Still though, for nearly all of them, it was their first time flying in Business Class,
and I’m pretty sure this is a flight they (or I, for that matter) won’t forget!
That concludes this special trip report with Air Canada.
Let me know what you thought of Air Canada’s private jet in the comments below.
But otherwise, thank you very much for watching, leave a like if you enjoyed the video, subscribe
if you are new to the channel, and I will see you in the next one.