Good evening from Vancouver International Airport!
My name is Alex, and welcome back to the channel.
In today’s video, I’m flying with Air Canada back to Calgary, on board one of their
Airbus A320s.
Now this should go without saying, but this is footage from last August, and I’ll talk
more about that in a channel update at the end of the video, so if you’d like to hear
that, stay tuned.
This was filmed during the Abbotsford airshow last year, just after the Dash 7 flight.
After that fantastic day flying on a piece of history, it was time for me to head home,
on the last flight of the day at 10PM.
Check-in was fairly uneventful, but I was surprised to see a somewhat reasonable price
to upgrade to Business.
I decided against it though, since I booked this economy fare about 2 weeks before the flight.
Anybody that’s tried to book a flight in Canada, two weeks before departure already
knows I paid much more than I should’ve.
Vancouver International is Canada’s second busiest airport, and the architecture always
impresses me whenever I’m flying through.
Parts of it are better than others, but even the domestic area has a lot of character!
We’ll be departing from gate C48, which is unfortunately a swing gate with a pretty
lousy view.
Our aircraft for today though is C-FKCO, and as you guessed from
the title, it is indeed a 27-year-old Airbus A320.
Funnily enough though, this isn’t even that old for Air Canada.
A few weeks ago, they retired their very first A320, fin 201, which was over 30 years old!
This early batch of A320s, specifically the A320-211s, are the oldest narrowbodies in
the Air Canada fleet, and the second oldest fleet type after the 767.
Just recently though, Air Canada announced that they’d be retiring 79 older aircraft,
including the Embraer 190s, Boeing 767s, and the Airbus A319s.
However, their press release didn’t mention the A320s.
They may be pretty dated, but I’ve been flying on Air Canada’s A320 family since
childhood , so they’ll always be pretty special to me.
Let’s go check it out!
My seat for today is 12A, in the first row of economy class.
The first four rows of Economy are all classified as “Preferred Seats” on Air Canada’s A320s.
Unlike their newer cabins, which all have a restrictive bulkhead dividing Business and
Economy, there’s just a curtain here as well as plenty of legroom for Economy passengers.
Even though the seat is misaligned in front, it’s surprisingly comfortable even if you’re
tall, and there’s an excellent engine view.
This pseudo-bulkhead row has tray tables in the armrests, as well as a very large seatback
pocket and an inflight entertainment screen.
I will say, row 12 is not a row you want the middle seat in,
not that those exist anymore.
There’s no seatback pocket for the middle, and both the tray table and IFE screen are
in the armrests on either side.
One thing I do love about flying on the Air Canada A320s is the fantastic engine sound
from this row.
Turn your speakers up for some amazing CFM56 buzzsaw as we depart Vancouver off of runway 08L.
A snack service started right after takeoff.
Given that it was a really late flight, the cabin crew felt pretty generous and gave me
a pile of pretzels, which probably contained more sodium than any human being ever needs,
but hey, I’ll take ‘em!
That was followed by a typical domestic drink service.
Although the seats have seen better days, I find that these are a lot more comfortable
than most newer ones, thanks to the extra padding.
The fixed armrests though, can get annoying.
On their own, Air Canada’s A320s are pretty comfortable, but where they really show their
age is the in-flight entertainment.
It is very slow and unresponsive, but the selection is good once you get there.
Occasionally, this does lead to some amusing glitches, where the moving map refused to
accept the fact that we were indeed, flying to Calgary.
At the same time, there’s not much point in complaining about it because there’s
very little Air Canada could’ve done.
Last summer, they really needed as many airplanes flying as possible, and refitting planes that
were going to be retired eventually anyway, was kinda out of the question.
At the very least though, there’s a built-in power outlet as well as a USB port.
In the seatback pocket is a safety card,
… Air Canada’s inflight magazine,
… A few air sickness bags,
… and a buy-on-board menu.
Sadly, the time of day meant no spectacular views of the Rockies, so with the landing
lights at least illuminating something out the window, here’s our arrival onto runway 17L.
Overall, this was a decent flight, if not a bit unremarkable.
The extra snacks were nice, the crew were friendly enough, and the in-flight entertainment
was, well, there.
There’s just not a whole lot to say for a flight that left at 10PM and arrived after
midnight in Calgary.
It does feel weird saying that today though, because I would love to be on another “unremarkable
flight” right now.
These A320s may be old, but I do love the engine buzzsaw sound, and it did not disappoint
on this flight!
This may be the nostalgia talking, but I will miss these when they’re eventually retired.
As long as a certain… demonetizable aircraft type stays grounded though, these A320s will
keep flying.
Thanks for watching this trip report.
Now, you’ve probably heard variations of this from every aviation channel by now, but
for those of you still watching, I wanted to say a few words just to clarify things.
I obviously can’t travel right now, so everything I’m uploading is pre-recorded from months
and months ago.
I also realize I barely uploaded in April and that’s not because I’m out of videos,
I had a lot going on in my personal life so that didn’t leave me any time to edit.
The way I usually do trip reports is, I film a bunch of different flights on each trip,
and then I spread those videos out over a couple months.
Basically, whenever I have time to make them.
Now, this has actually kinda worked in my favour, because I’ve got a significant backlog
of videos that’ll get the channel through the summer pretty much, and I’m planning
to stick with the weekly uploads until then, but don’t hold me to that!
I know some restrictions are lifting right now, but like everyone else, it’s really
hard to say when things will fully get back to normal.
So, that’s the plan for me at the moment, I’m gonna keep the aviation and travel-related
content coming out and maybe we can all fly again in a couple months or so.
But yeah, thanks again for watching this trip report and the channel update, leave a like,
subscribe, and I’ll see you next time.