On Sunday, August 17, 2003, at 04:20 PM, Bahadir Acuner wrote: > I booked the ticket in a really short notice through ITN.NET This was > kind of a > nice surprise for $600 plus round trip considering both Air Canada and > other > US airlines requested more than $1200 for a "normal" round trip. > To my surprise combining the flight with Horizon and Air Canada > produced a great result. ITA (and I think ITN) seem to do a check on a leg-by-leg basis, vs. pricing the whole routing. (I'm not an expert on these things.) If there aren't any direct flights, I head straight over to ITA as it finds some great fares (many of them on a single carrier.) If I take the same itinerary back to Expedia or Travelocity, they produce the same fare, but if you do a search of Expedia/Travelocity, it never offers the same low-fare & itinerary that ITA did. > After a quick check in, I was handed the boarding pass. It had SSSS on > it, > so I knew I was a selectee. I don't know why I was selected because I > didn't > have a one way ticket and I paid for it with the company credit card. > May be to > Alaska I was a one way traveler as the reservation had two different > PNR numbers; > one for Alaska, the other one from Air Canada. Paper Ticket, Multiple Carrier bumps you straight up to the head of the line. I used to have paper tickets going Delta/BWIA and I was napped every flight. > YVR-YUL Aug. 10, 2003 8:20 am AC 150 > A321 C-GITU First A321 for the airline > > Air Canada has this interesting way of numbering the bulkhead seats > with > number 12, so that they can start the coach numbering from the same > number regardless > of aircraft type. I have noticed the same on Delta but United and US > Airways do > not number their planes like this. United used to start their A319s at 3 and A320s at 6, but now it is all 6. All AC cattle class seats start at 12. All of their wide-body flights are A-K (skipping I), to support the 747-400's 10 across seating, but they leave out B and J on A340s. Even AC's old Energizer DC9s used to start at 12 and dropped aisle B. > Before push-back the flight attendant offered newspapers to the people > on > the hospitality class. This is something I remember from my > international > flights I have taken. It was a nice touch, but I passed. You should of been offered one of a National Post, Vancouver Sun, Vancouver Province (all owned by CanWest), or a Globe and Mail. There's still a legacy 'newspaper' war going on across Canada, and it's taken place in the cabins of Air Canada aircraft and other 'public' places. > Before the movie we were served breakfast which consisted of a roll, > butter, > fresh fruit, omelets with potatoes. All this was nice and filling and > it > really didn't taste like airline food. :) I noticed that some of the > carts and > food treys had "Canadian" sign and logo on it. I still actually like Air Canada's food. (the non-$$ food on the long hauls.) We used to call the YYZ-YUL morning MEAL (back when AC and CP were in competition on the Rapidair route), the 'fluffy egg flight' and it was so good, you could actually count on being fed a real breakfast on board. AC undertook a lot of CP 'baggage', you frequently get CP glassware (in J), CP headsets, CP carts, airport wheelchars, salt'n'pepper shakers etc. If you are really into legacy, you can frequently get AirOntario plastic glasses with their pre-1992 livery. Of course, many Air Canada stations around the world STILL have Air Canada artwork that pre-dates 1982! (AC changed to a Helvetica typeface in 82/83 and white body in 1992 or so.) > Overall, I was pleased with the services of both Air Canada and > Horizon. > I know that Alaska/Horizon has a great product, but I was surprised to > see Air Canada provide a service like I have seen on international > flights. You would of been thoroughly unimpressed with AC's service in YYZ last Friday. It seems they STILL don't know how to handle disruptions to clear-sky-flying. But it's still not that bad... Matthew