That's It. Its over. No more Air Canada. No more Aeroplan. No more MLL. No more Executive First. No more EnRoute magazine.

I can put up with long lines at the check-in counter. The long wait to speak to a reservation agent. The impossibly long wait to book an Aeroplan reward ticket. Crowded lounges. Oversold flights. Cancelled flights. Flight delays. Lost baggage. Delayed baggage coming out the carousel. Rude flight attendants.

I can put up with all that.

But not this. No way. No how. No sir.

This takes the cake. This has no equal. Nothing I have read on Flyertalk even comes close. Not even barely.

This morning.

Breakfast flight.

YOW-YYZ.

Breakfast flight (oh, I already mentioned that).

Gambled on the "cold" breakfast.

What did I find? To my shock? Dismay? Terror (OK, terror is a bit of an overstatement....)

Mixed in with the fruit? The fruit plate that was promised to me by the Flight Attendant? The fruit plate that was SUPPOSED to tide me over for another, say, 20 minutes until we landed?

Mixed in with the sweet watermelon? The fragrant canteloupe? The green honeydew? (what's a good adjective for honeydew?).

Wait for it.

Cottage cheese.

(now please pause to let it sink in)

<pause>

Cottage cheese.

You know - that oooey yucky stuff that somehow they call "cheese".

Oh it was awful. It ruined the whole fruit plate. Everything smelled of cottage cheese! It even touched the honeydew - rendering that entire slice of fruit entirely inedible. And the remainder of the fruit on the plate had this terrible malodourous scent - of yes, you guessed it - Cottage cheese.

I had to work very hard to control my disgust. And then to control the rage that came over me. I must be frank in admitting that I was almost an air rage statistic.

Luckily the yogurt was raspberry flavoured - thereby saving what could have been a very ugly incident mid-air.

But nevertheless, I refuse to fly on any airline that would serve cottage cheese to its passengers.

To be frank, I didn't taste it. Thinking back, it sort of looked like oatmeal. It could have been oatmeal. Maybe it was oatmeal. Maybe I was too quick to judge. Maybe I should give the airline another chance.

No, it was cottage cheese.

...uh huh

...and I thought the rubbery Kraft microwaved rye sandwiches were a challenge!

I think the worst entree I have ever had in the air was on an AC A340, YYZ-YVR, in J class. Ghastly. Inedible. I dunnow how they come up with some of this stuff...

Chunky white oil? I don't blame you .

You know, I don't know why they even bother serving a "meal" on such a short flight in the first place. I've been flying YYZ-YUL round trips almost once a month and during the lunch service they serve what I like to call "mystery sandwich" because I have no idea what it is, so I don't eat it. I notice that a good number of passengers around me do the same thing. If Air Canada is desperate to find some cost savings to become profitable again, they should eliminate this meal service from Rapidair. I'd be very happy with just a decent sized bag of chips, pretzels, or nuts.

FlyerAl: The second AC does away with such a meal service, you'll have people like me squaking and fussing that they don't serve food. I suggest that they improve what they have, not get rid. Remember, these are J passengers... they are what keep the airline flying at all.

I have had wonderful meals on the old CP Shuttle flights! Like braised duck, hoisin sauce, bukchoi, noodles. Or like a mushroom omlette, with sausages, potatoes, and a muffin or pastry.

It is totally possible to serve a decent meal in this time. Just a question of will from the powers that be...

Would another option be for AC to offer a deli lunch/snack service at the gate, with fresh sandwiches, boxed salads, fresh fruit etc? This way, if AC doesn't think that there is enough time to offer meal service onboard the aeroplane [i love it, FlyBoy ] all they have to do is drinks etc. The passengers can eat at the gate or on the plane. I have seen this on short-haul NW flights out of MSP a few years back, and it seemed fairly popular with everyone. Alternately, if AC provided this only to its Y passengers, there would be extra F/As available to pull of the a full meal in J. Unfortunately, I think that Montr�al isn't worried about lack of time, but rather excess of spending.

Sorry to hear that Salisbury but I have seen worse on AC YUL-NYC short haul.

A Jewish couple seated in front of me had ordered a Special Meal in advance.... and guess what they got? Ham sandwich
the attendant claimed that they didn't order the Kosher meal.

Poor Guy. He only ate the shortbread cookie.

It's not just the short haul flights. J meal service is in a steady decline. My flight last night was so pathetic, I wonder why they even bother to try J service. I will avoid AC domestic 762. The seats have to be the most uncomfortable (excluding the CRJ) in the fleet. The width is no better than in Y. Entire service was only 90 minutes on a 4 hour flight. Even if the food was enjoyable, they don't allow you much time to enjoy it.

If offering upgrades is decreasing J revenue to the point where J is no longer special, then I would suggest that upgrades be eliminated or reduced to full Y. At leats the revenue stream would be there to support a quality product.

In comparison, on my last 2 flights (YVR-HKG and back), the food was excellent and i think it has improved!

I will avoid AC domestic 762. The seats have to be the most uncomfortable (excluding the CRJ) in the fleet.

That's why on transcon flight, I pick aircrafts with international J while we still have a choice. Good thing is those 762 will soon be gone!

Now that the 762 are retiring, I think we'll see less and less of those domestic config 762 but at the same time see more 320/319 and even 321 later in the year on domestic flights which is not much better.

Ideed true about the 320s Empress. I noticed that the daily sked for YVR-YYZ is now an A 320 on the 15:30 and 16:30 departure operated by AC. It sed to be 767-300 operated by CP.

On a side note, AC seems to have cut back a bit much on the YVR-YYZ sked at least this Sunday. I'm trying to book an Aeroplan seat, and the agent claims that every flight except the 07:30 was "heavily" oversold that day. Hey tried routing through YYC, YEG, YWG, YOW and well, he claims that everying is a no-go even for AC*E. I suspect that he has no idea what to do for Elite, so I'll try back in the morning. (Decided that I need a bit of pacific R&R this weekend - it's been 5 days since I returned from reading week )

[This message has been edited by Fisch (edited 03-01-2001).]

Canadians are still being spoilt by choice even on one airline. Breakfast - cottage cheese even, on a less than one hour flight.

Take the Americans for example. UA - SFO to SAN, about a hour 15 min flight. First Class.
Breakfast flight. Choice of... Coffee or Tea?

Welcome to the USA

Don't forget one crucial fact: Upgrades are base on AVAILABILITY. The whole point of upgrades was that they would fill seats that are not being sold anyway, not to give people confirmed-in-advance seats that reduce revenue. Eliminating upgrades would be too broad a sword, and would not save AC any tangible amount of money (or improve in-flight service), aside from the SE "confirm-at-booking" benefit which probably munches more J revenue than the old x-number-of-hours scheme...

But at least the lowest fare between SFO-SAN is about C$117. I would love to see the day when I could buy a YYZ-YUL weekend ticket on AC for $117! With the money you save, you could buy yourself a nice gourmet breakfast in an upscale restaurant and still have some $$ left.

In the U.S., your not going to find a choice of hot or continental breakfast on a 40 minute flight, even in FIRST CLASS. Now were complaining about cottage cheese!!! Why is the glass always half empty? :=)