Last week I took my first transatl flight on AC since the merger (flown BA Austrian and CX in the past year). Impressions: AC878 inflight crew that did all possible to show approx 20 passengers in the business class cabin that they really did not want to be there. Rather cold greeting at the aircraft door, no offer to hang the coat in the closet, from my last flt on AC I seem to recall tray with water/champagne/juice offered to the passengers in the front cabin upon embarkation - no longer the case, announcement made on the taxiway that if the seatbelts sign on "you MUST! remain in your seat", first type of any cabin/food/beverage service approx 50 min. after take off(bar trolley with the meal immediately afterwards, no hors d'oeuvre). As for the remainder of the flt I could not comment as I gave up and decided to sleep.
One of my neighbours who flies for AC is under impression that AC878 is AC metal with AC pilots and CP cabin crew, can anyone confirm?
Intra Europe flown Crossair, beautiful Embraer 2-1 configuration, leather seats, crew that seemed to be happy (I guess they have reasons to be happy:Crossair posted EUR4.4mln profit for the month of September),
wonderful hot meal served (economy class) on linen and china. After that Tyrolean and LH
again experience similar to Crossair. Than AC3859 from LHR!@%# As soon as I mentioned the flt nr to my neighbour, his remark was "How long have they kept the seatbelt sign on?". According to him this is CP metal + CP pilots + CP cabin crew.
I really don't know where to start. I remember old CP Air and Wardair. Those flight attendants did not resemble neither, more like perhaps PWA or some airline that used to fly fish up North. Attitude: "I hate AC, I hate Milton, I don't care". This segment in economy class, didn't mind as the gate agent able to secure window seat with an aisle beside vacant. My experience with other carriers made me believe that most of the majors long haul follow more or less standard procedure: first trolley down the aisle beverage and peanuts, 2)trolley with meals, 3)trolley collecting trays with coffee/tea/liquers. Well about 90 min after take off they appeared with one trolley carrying all of the above, offered coffee with the meal (cold by the time meal finished), collected trays and notified captain that meal service finished so he could switch the seatbelt sign for the remainder of the flight.
I am very courious if the above is only my subjective perception or someone had a similar experience? For now I think I am going to give up on AC for a while, even though my Co. has a corporate contract with AC I think we can get around by booking codeshare space on LH metal or Austrian when they return to Toronto.

Was that "fish" or "Fisch"?

I am sorry to hear of your experience. Unfortunately I don't think that service was a conincidence and I don't think it will improve in the immediate future. My mother will be flying transatlantic again with AC this month, it will be interesting to see if her impression is consistant. Either way AC will be unlikely to get her business on the next trip because BA has been giving out free tickets to corporate customers.

Steyr,

Sorry to hear about your experiences on the two AC flights. Please help us out by writing the company a complaint letter when you receive this kind of service. What you described is totally unacceptable. The only caveat that I have, is that the announcement "must return to your seat" is verbatim from the company announcement manual and is dictated by Transport Canada.

In answer to your question regarding the crew origin, the crews in question, were former Canadian airlines crews. During the recent cutbacks, all flight attendants laid off were original AC flight attendants. The former CP flight attendants had a no lay off clause in their contract. As most of the aircraft which are being parked are former CP metal, the CP flight attendants were left with very little flying. (the two groups are still not flying together until the arbitrator merges the seniority lists) Air Canada has elected to transfer most of our long haul international flying to the CP flight attendants, ostensibly due to cost considerations. Needless to say, the AC flight attendants are not very happy. With twenty four years of seniority, I am no longer able to hold overseas flying and would relish the opportunity to offer you top notch service on a Zurich or London flight.
Once again, I sincerely appologize for these shortcomings and hope to see you onboard one of my flights!

fish/Fisch/poisson

Follow up question, my impression was that service generally lacked any touch of class. Are the flights staffed by crews of former Air Canada any better. In the past I had rather good experience with AC especially on ZRH and LHR routes (at some point I recall SR flt attendants on AC aircraft).

For the same reasons you describe I booked upcoming YVR - SVO as BLI - SVO on UA/LH. For me it's worth driving 40 km to BLI to get my money's worth out of United than endure the disappointment of AC long haul in-flight J.

Know what? I feel good knowing I won't be bitter about paying AC J and getting less than AC Y.

I urge all YVR's to do likewise.

1D

P.S.
Thank you for clarification purser@AC ... good luck to you and hopefully sometime in the future AC will be AC again, but I feel that it will be long and painful process.

It really doesn't matter which airline the flight attendants were from. As long as they provide good service, I really don't care which side he/she is from.

This is my point. At the same time I find hard to justify spending $3000.00 one way for a flight, to receive this kind of classless "service". As mentioned I have not flown over the water on AC/CP airplane for over a year, I am trying to find out if the flights crewed by former AC staff are were they used to be before in relation to the cabin service, if not I will gladly connect through Frankfurt with LH.
Also I fail to understand reasons why xCP crews are unhappy to the point that they offload their frustrations on the customers.It seems that their airline has been saved by AC (certainly for political reasons and against all economic principals),my understanding is that they received pay increases and as purser@AC indicated above, it is mostly former AC staff who are being laid off .....

Better check which airline you've been protected on. No more UA/UAx service to BLI.

I just flew YUL-LHR-YUL and was quite happy with long haul service (other than the yogurt incident )

I strongly object to your statement about ex-CP crews offloading their frustrations on their customers. I've seen worse AC employees in the system. Don't come to such a strong conclusion based on 1 or 2 flights.

Sorry, but these were two consecutive flts within 5 days, with two different crews, and as mentioned above even AC management is aware of the "seatbelts on" routine.

I think that you just got unlucky with your crew - whatever their origin. I was an avid CP Flyer until last year; since then I've flown with both CP and AC crews and there really seems to be little difference. And for the most part the service has been very good, including both TransAt and TransPac. On my most recent flight (in J) from YYZ-YVR with an AC crew, I was amazed at the attentiveness of one FA to a pax whose video wasn't working and who ended up missing the meal he had requested. This was not formula service, but a genuine concern for the pax she was dealing with. Yes, there are bad crews - and you should follow up on that a la purser@AC, but it's worth another try.

I've taken 4 long haul flights (YYZ-YVR rt, YVR-HKG rt) in the last 7 days with a mix of ex-CP and AC crews, all the flights were pretty good. So should I expect all my flights from now on to be flawless? I don't think so...

As Academic said, give them another chance...