Trip Reports - AC HKG-YYZ-LGA Part 2

This is in continuation on my previous post about AC's new YYZ-HKG route AC9 & AC10.

Just got back home from LGA, and I have lots to say in this report. In general, the flight AC 10 HKG-YYZ was MUCH WORSE than what I experienced on AC9.

Sunday May 21, AC 9 HKG-(YVR)-YYZ
Aircraft: A340, Y 100% full, J 95% full.

Check-in & Handling: The ground handling was provided by UA, obviously because AC & UA are Star Alliance partners. Lined up at Elite/SE/Exec 1st Check-in counter. I flashed the CP Gold card, but the staff did not know what to do with it, and did not place Priority Luggage tags, and there was no lounge invitation. Got preassigned seat 14G.

I was told that the flight will stop at YVR for 40 mins, because of crew change. This flight was supposed to be Non Stop at the time I booked. Looks like AC still haven't made an agreement with the union on long haul flights.

Boarding was a complete mess. There were no preboard announcements and pax were not boarded by row numbers. Boarding done by UA agents as well, only one AC personnel present. The flight was totally sold out, which was surprising in this time of the year, where traffic to HKG should be greater than traffic to North America.

Inflight service: Merely satisfactory to poor. Lots of the crew were Canadian-Born Chinese, and they seemed to be overstressed and got some sort of an attitude problem. (I'm Chinese as well, so I'm not being racist here.) They were hostile to the senior passengers. The Chinese announcements were unintelligible, because the grammar was all wrong and it wasn't polite. For example, they said something in Chinese which translates to "Hey you people getting off at Vancouver, get off the plane now" in English which was very rude.

The Asian style meals were HORRIBLE, despite that they were prepared in HKG. The meals made by CARA in YVR were much better on AC9.
The chicken was "petrified" and it was rock hard. The fish looked ok but smelled fishy. And one more thing, they served a roast beef dish which were leftovers from J CLASS!!! The roast beef wasn't on the menu and it was served on china, and the portion was huge.

The so called "fresh fruit salad & gelatine pudding dessert" was simply canned fruit in syrup and a big lump of Jello & Agar cube, which was bad.

For those who are curious, I kept a copy of the menu. The first person to email me gets it.

Noodles and sandwiches were served halfway, and many pax. including me, pigged out on the noodles because they didn't eat the lunch.

The breakfast was poor, Beef noodles or Poached Egg w/ Chicken Kabob. I had the Egg --> BIG MISTAKE. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif That was the worst breakfast dish I had on any airline, the 2 eggs were simply boiled to half raw, and then cooked by reheating the tray before serving. Unfortunately, the turbulence shuffled the trays a bit, and the egg was all over the place. As usual, the chicken was fossilized, dry and hard. The beef noodles looked really good.

After landing in YVR, we were not allowed to leave the aircraft. We were in YVR for 1:05 hours and could not do anything. Ground personnel cleaned the bathrooms and replenished meals. Several pax. demanded to leave the aircraft but to no avail. I think this is a very bad move by AC to keep people on board, because the cleaning solutions smelled badly and the plane was freezing cold with all the doors open.

To be continued.. getting tired from typing
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

I hope this isn't typical of the new AC


"the MapleFlot our airline dear"

Continuation of the above post:

The flight landed 20 minutes early in YVR, but the layover in Vancouver actually lasted 1:15. There was a change of the cabin crew & pilots.

The YVR-YYZ leg was much better, the crew members were much more polite and helpful. The meal was Chicken with soba noodles or Beef Steak, which was better compared to the food prepared in HKG.

The plane arrived in YYZ at 5:35pm, which was an hour and 20 minutes later than the published ETA because of the unexpected layover. My connection to LGA (AC722) departs at 6pm and obviously I didn't make it.

I had to clear Canadian customs because there was no International-US transit lounge. The luggage reclaim was slow, it took 20 minutes for the first bags to come out. By the time I got through the customs, it is already 6:20pm.

The Terminal 2 at YYZ is very confusing, I had to line up for a elevator to take me to the departures level. Once I was there, it took me some time to locate the AC USA check-in counter. Went to the J-Class check-in and the line was long and stagnant, 20+ people were lining up and half of them were not J-Class or elite FF members. The agent couldn't care less and the line kept on building up.

By the time I reached the check-in agent, it is already 6:40pm. She put me on the flight AC 724 to LGA deaprting at 7:00pm and this was the last flight out of YYZ to LGA. So I had only 15 minutes to fill out the US customs forms (I'm a student, so I have lots of forms to fill out and the INS inspection takes slightly longer) & the security check. I was running to the gate and I was the 2nd last passenger.

Sun May 21, AC 724 YYZ-LGA
ETD 1900, Actual Departure at 1905
Arrived at 2007
Aircraft: A310
Y class 65% full, J class 4 paxs.

This flight was SO MUCH BETTER than AC 10 and this was the only high note in the entire journey. The crew was extremely friendly and courteous. A salad and ham & cheese sandwich was served and it was excellent, and then followed by cocktail service.

When we entered approach to the NYC area, the male Purser was kind enough to invite the kids onboard for a cockpit visit, and they were very excited.

The plane arrived at 2007, 20 minutes ahead of schedule, but the parking bay was still occupied. So we waited on the tarmac for 10 minutes and then parked at the gate.

The luggage was already waiting on the carousel and I picked it up and hailed a cab home.

So in conclusion, I think that the AC international service still needs improvement, and compared to the rest, CX and CP is way better than AC because of their experience in handling Asian passengers. The AC crew was obviously overstressed and frustrated, because of their inexperience, especially those CBC FAs (Canadian born chinese) lacked patience to help non-English speakers.

AC is beginning to market this route in NYC, and they didn't mention that Canadian customs clearance is required on both ways in YYZ, so people w/o Canadian Visas would be in big trouble at YYZ. Personally, I do not recommend this route to NYC-based people because of the customs formalities and the service. If you like Star Alliance, fly SQ to HKG instead (which I'll try this Christmas.)

I'll be flying back to HKG again this Friday (May 25). the routing will be LGA-YUL-YVR-HKG. The LGA-YUL leg will be on AC, and YUL-YVR-HKG will be entirely on CP metal. Stay tuned for this trip report and I'm going to summarize the service between CP & AC.

Interesting assessment of inflight and check-in service on AC. (As to your remarks about the treatment of ethnic Chinese, I find this is also the case on CX which in my experience has often treated us Caucasians with a little more defference than most Chinese on board.)

Glad to hear the Canadian-made food was superior to the menu catered out of HKG (I also own share in CARA). As for not being allowed off the plane in YVR, that is understandable because you are still a "sterile" flight and technically not in Canada yet. (True they could set up a lougne for such situations, but it requires gate staff, etc. which are probably more urgently required elsewhere in the terminal.)

As for having to clear Canadian customs/immigration in YYZ even though you are transiting onward to LGA, T2 was not well designed to handle such transiting. It will be interesting to see if T1 will have the same type of transborder to international transit arrangements as YVR has for U.S.-originating travellers connecting there to international flights. (I believe no immigration or customs clearance is needed for bags, and there may just be a cursory passport/ticket check otherwise. Though I may be wrong on this point.)

Welcome back, and I hope all your points registered properly for the return flights too.

Shareholder,

The flight meals were catered by CX Catering Services in HKG. Looks like AC is cutting costs on its inflight meals because the meals seem to use rather "lower quality" supplies than CX & CP.

The bread was prepackaged stuff, sealed in shrinkwrap and rock hard, and the cheese was a "full fat spread" (as written on the container) from Germany. The spring water was from Australia. They used "Anchor" butter which is from NZ. All of these adds up to around US$1-1.50 maximum.

Including everything else (salad, main course, dessert and supplies, the meal costs around $7 in my own estimates.

I forgot to mention in the review, the "Shrimp Salad" was so TACKY that it contained only one microscopic piece of shrimp (I thought it was a plankton floating on my salad dressing http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif ), and the rest were lettuce strips and lima beans. Also the dessert was horrible. AC thinks we are some form of bacteria and feeds us with sweet tofu-flavored Agar cube on a petri-dish. Yum Yum.

Compared to my flight on CX888/889 Y Class this January, CX uses freshly baked crossiant bread, French "Presidente" butter (which costs US$0.3-0.5 apiece in supermarkets) and high quality spring water (either Evian or some other French stuff.) Even in Y-Class they give you fresh cheese, not kraft processed cheese.

Regarding the racial issue, I admit that many Chinese customers are a real pain, because many of them don't have any etiquette. Just look at their meal trays, they splatter everything all over the place and expect the FA to clean up for them. As a well-travelled person, I clean up my trays and make them look neat and tidy. I have experienced much worse on CX JFK-HKG flights, because many of them are Mainlanders and they are a nightmare to deal with. (Sorry to be stereotyping, but its the reality.) But all of that doesn't mean the FA can be rude to them.

AC could have given better directions on YYZ transborder transits. There was absolutely no indications or directions or help from AC personnel. I went to the departures level and searched for the check in counter on my own. The customs inspection was the same for everyone, and the officer questioned me a lot of times and he worried that I am going to leave something in Canada w/o paying duty.

If AC wants to market this route to US-based customers, they better do something about this. They should build a transit facility in T1 or T2.

As for keeping people on board at YVR, AC has no choice. CIC and CCRA regulations require that if any transit pax deplanes at a sterile station stop, then everyone must deplane, claim their bags, clear customs/immigration and then re-board. NOT a happy prospect.

As for Canadian clearances, there is only one airport in Canada that is designed for sterile transit--YVR. Even T3 is too old to have been built with this in mind.

The facilities were purpose built when the international terminal was built in 1996, and Citizenship & Immigration and Revenue Canada Customs (as they then were) agreed to allow sterile transits, as a pilot project (which has now become permanent).

At present, no other airport in Canada has the physical layout to allow sterile transit. Even with T1, this will not happen, because there will be no sterile access to T2 transborder.

When Tnew is built, sterile transit facilities should be included.

Excellent report http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif !

AC service can range from excellent to awful. Just reading your comments about CBC, some HK based F/As have the same thoughts about CBC. The CBC thought themselves as a class higher than normal Hong Kong native. For example, when the YVR-HKG flight crew filled of CBC saw the arrivals of the inbound HKG-YVR flight, they will not exchange any hellos! The CBC will just give the HK crew a dirty look and walk away. I am just curious why there is this horrific division between CBC and HK native.

However, I found AC's Taiwanese crews to be quite present. Very nice and polite!

Food catered in HK can be horrific... However, CX seems to produce better food for its own CX flights. Afterall, the airline determines how much money it wants to spend on food.

Anyway, thanks for a great report! I am looking forward to your CP report...

Carfield

Regarding the Transits/Layover stop in Vancouver, CX's JFK-(YVR)-HKG routes (CX888/CX889) allows passengers to get off the plane and freely roam inside the international terminal during the layover, or go to the lounge if you're a OW Sapphire/Emerald Member. I heard from somewhere that CX pays a customs bond so therefore the paxs. are allowed to get off by Canadian authorities.

I wonder if it is due to a fear of refugee claimants. For the JFK-YVR-HKG flight, it is doubtful anyone who is already in the U.S. woudl come to Canada to claim refugee status (though it does happen but I doubt any would take that route).

Does CX allow pax to transit off a/c enroute to JFK? I seem to think they do.

It doesn't give AC much of an excuse though as people can claim refugee status or destroy their travel docs anywhere along the way.

Did they ask to check travel docs before leaving the a/c in YYZ?

Originally posted by ssw207:

The bread was prepackaged stuff, sealed in shrinkwrap and rock hard, and the cheese was

FWIW, I see that prepacked bread seems to be very common. US uses it extensively out of CLT, SEA and LGW (SkyChefs).

AA also uses it for their 1st class meal service! (out of SEA anyway). Glad to say US doesn't (out of MSY, DCA and PIT)

There are psgrs. terminating at YVR on the CX JFK-YVR-HKG route and transit to other destinations in US & Canada (subject to customs inspection of course.) AC does have some psgrs. terminating at YVR too. So why can't AC pay the customs bond and set up a bonded lounge like CX?

Regarding the Refugee status, the passport check at HKG is much stricter nowadays. At the check-in desk, your nationality & passport number is entered into the PNR and retained. Then you have to go through HK departure Immigration control as usual. At the gate, the secondary ID check is conducted by AVSECO personnel (Aviation Security Company Limited, a subsidiary of the HK Airport Authority) whom are specially trained by HK Police & FBI to detect falsified IDs. These personnel may ask you random questions. I was asked "What's your name and where are you going" by the security. Once they are satisifed, they stamp your boarding pass.

This morning in HKG, 13 mainlanders were detected by security carrying falsified BNO passports trying to board a KE flight to SEL and then onwards to US.

So if any pax. attempts to declare refugee status, the authorities would have all the information from the PNR and HK Immigration department to deny the request and expel the individual out of the country.

There was no passport checking when I left the aircraft at YYZ. I know this is conducted at YVR where the Immigration agents checks your passport before leaving the jetway tube.

For the "prepackaged bread" comment, it is common on many carriers but I'm just drawing a comparison on AC with CX and CP.

[This message has been edited by ssw207 (edited 05-22-2000).]

Originally posted by Carfield:
CBC thought themselves as a class higher than normal Hong Kong native.
Carfield

This is a normal psychological problem for Chinese people whom were born/studied abroad and fluent in English. They think they are more superior and try to associate with foreign people and their lifestyles, hence the friendly attitude towards Caucasians. This phenomenon is common among HK social elites. They avoid to speak Chinese & speak English instead. In reality these people have very low self-esteem.

Originally posted by Carfield:

CX seems to produce better food for its own CX flights.
Carfield

CX can keep its costs low because of Vertical Integration, e.g. CX can provide meals to itself at cost, while making profit on meals provided to others.

[This message has been edited by ssw207 (edited 05-22-2000).]

Couple things.
1. About Chinese Chinese behaving, er, unesthetically, that is true: but bear in mind that you're watching them function in an alien setting. Think of round-eyes in Asia, who from my experience tend to act quite un-Asian, not a big surprise, while leaving their places strewn with guck and bits of rice: those chopsticks are mighty slippery, and anyway there's not so much of an onus there regarding messy eating.
2. Regarding the attitudes and low self-esteem of CBCs (or ABCs, which is my perspective) - I was brought up at a time when the more educated refugees sought - in a way common to other educated refugees, particularly Europeans - to imbue their children with the new homeland's culture, to make us more American than the Americans, as it were. So I speak English with what people interpret as an upstate New York accent and Chinese, alas, with what people interpret as an upstate New York accent (which makes people, particularly my father, laugh); I eat rare meat (very un-Chinese); and on the whole I feel little commonality with my millennia of background.This does contain an esteem issue, inherited in part from my parents, and stemming in part from the treatment I got as a kid (we were much more of a minority than, say, the blacks, and almost as conspicuous).

I think it borders on the unfair to report the warts and foibles of these similar-appearing but oh-so-different populations without bearing (and helping others to do the same) in mind the forces that shaped them. Even if, as with most of us here, we have managed to do the situation one better, or so we hope.

Violist: I'm not saying that all Chinese people born/educated (CBCs or ABCs) abroad behaves like that, but sadly there is a large majority who does and they give us a bad name.

BTW, Carfield is now the 'proud owner' of the printed AC menu. Below is a transcript of the menu:

LUNCH:
-Marinated Shrimp Appetizer
-Steamed Garoupa, Yellow Bean Sauce, Steamed Rice, Oriental Vegetables
-Chicken Chasseur, Buttered Carrots, Fried Rice with Ham and Egg
-Chinese Gelatine Dessert with Coconut and Fruit Salad

HOT REFRESHMENT:
-Chicken Flavoured Oriental Noodle Dish

LIGHT MEAL:
-Fresh Fruit Appetizer
-Poached Eggs topped with Crushed Tomamtoes, Grilled Chicken Brochette, Potato Cake, Mixed Mushrooms
-Stir Fried Beef, Black Beans Sauce, Egg Noodles with Soya

In addition to the Oriental Noodle Dish service, sandwiches and cookies are availiable upon request.

Note: An unlisted main course was available, it was Roast Beef with Carrots and Potatoes, served on china. Apparently these were leftovers from Executive First meal service.


[This message has been edited by ssw207 (edited 05-23-2000).]