Pjack94

Background

I have been looking forward to this trip since we started booking parts of the trip about a year ago. The choices of flights are BA or AC as I wanted a direct flight to Montreal. Both AC & BA have their good and bad points but I went for AC as they were moving to Heathrow’s new T2, the departure time is earlier and the total price is a good deal cheaper as BA charge for seat reservations that would have been an extra £200 on top of their fare.

Earlier on in this year AC changed the A/C from a 333 to their infamous 10 abreast 77W’s. The change bought a few positives (newer A/C & IFE) and negatives, the only sets of two seats are right at the back where I didn’t want to sit and the 10 across seating.

LHR T2 departure

We arrived at Terminal 2 around 11.45am for our 15:00 departure to Montreal after dropping our car off at the hotel and taking the hotel hoppa to T2. The bus driver asked us to have a drink for him on Canada Day (July 1st), he had a maple leaf pin on but unfortunately we would be back in the UK by the 1st but it was a nice thing to say. We walked past a row of elevators into an atrium where the impressive sculpture is.

Sculpture pics

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One of two main entrances to the departures level

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The four check in zones

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Bag drop area

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Self service check in area.

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We took the elevator up to the top departures level and quickly found AC check in zone A as it was right in front of one of two main entrances. We had dropped off our bags within 10 minutes of entering the terminal. The Flying Chariot bar is at the south end of the terminal and would be an OK for spotting as it has an upstairs and then another viewing platform in the spirit of the viewing area of the old T2. There are slats on the outside of the glass so no good for photography.

View from The Flying Chariot over the check in area

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We were quickly through security. The shops are the usual type of high end stores common in other terminals of LHR.

The Departure lounge.

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We went for a drink at the London’s Pride pub by Fullers, makers of London Pride beer. They have an exclusive beer, Wingman for T2 which I had a pint. The pub looked very smart and modern with lost of references to London (unsurprisingly).

The Fullers London’s Pride Pub.

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Wingman, A fullers beer exclusively for Terminal 2.

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My pint of Wingman.

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Interior photo of the pub.

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All of AC’s flights depart from the B satellite so we had a walk from the main terminal through a tunnel to the gates. Our gate B44 was quite close to the escalators so we didn’t have far to walk, Total walking time was around 10 minutes.

The tunnel to the B satellite

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Interior shot of the B satellite

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I liked the departure experience from T2 a lot because of the bright airy feel with lots of natural light, so much better then Terminal 3 AC’s previous home at LHR. It had obviously a nice new feel to it although as it is operating at 10% of its capacity it was very quiet. Once all of the airlines have moved over I think it will be rather more crowded. One little problem I experienced was that I couldn’t get the hand driers to work in the toilets.

Now time for our flight to YUL.

Flight No AC865

A/C Reg no C-FNNU


Gate B44 is the one of the nearest gates to the walkway from the main terminal.

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Looking back to the main terminal building.

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We were quickly on board as the flight was less than half full in all cabins and we were pushed back on time at 15:00. This is AC’s last 77W delivered on 18th December 2013. It has the controversial 10 across leather seating, the cabin had a faint smell of leather just like an expensive car. The family and I had booked 41A to D but we claimed the whole row up to G as most of the middle section of seats were free. The CC carried out a manual safety demo. I haven’t seen one of those for a few years with an IFE equipped A/C. We taxied over to 09R and departed on time.

Here goes the obligatory legroom shot.

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The IFE welcome screen

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Map shots

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IFE

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The IFE system was really quite good, the touch screen was quick and the definition was the best I have experienced. The sound was very clear with my own earphones, last year we used the AC supplied ones that were really quite poor so take your own if you want clear sound! The amount of content was ok for a six hour flight. I watched Rush, The Lego movie and The Monuments Men. I had wanted to watch Rush and the Lego Movie so I wasn’t disappointed and all three films were good. Everything is Awesome from the Lego Movie became the sound track for the holiday as my children kept singing it after seeing the film.

Meal service

The food & drink service was really quite poor and a marked deterioration from last year. The choices were chicken or pasta and I went for the chicken. It was a tiny piece of chicken in a tomato sauce with some mashed potato. This was also not accompanied by a drink apart from the water on the tray, the drinks cart was behind the food cart so I had to wait 10 minutes or so for a drink. I obviously had to have a Canadian for my first taste of Canada since last year.

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There was another drinks service after the meal service and then a wrap around 1.5 hours from landing.

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Mood lighting

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Approach into YUL

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The Olympic Park and Inclined tower

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Bienvenue à la Quebec

We arrived on 24R and made our way to gate A55. We quickly collected our bags and we were on our way for

We had a few nights in Montreal.

Our hotel, The Fairmont Queen Elizabeth.

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Our room

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I am a member of Fairmont’s frequent stay programme The Fairmont Presidents Club, one perk of the programme is the use of a chauffeured BMW in their North American properties. We were taken to Jacques Cartier square for dinner one evening by their driver Ben. He had a great knowledge of Montreal as he told us about a few landmarks of old Montreal as we passed them.

The hotel BMW

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We hired some push bikes for a ride around the F1 circuit. The race was only two weeks before so the grandstands etc were still being taken down.

The hairpin

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The chicane

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Start-Finish straight

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One of the pit garage doors were open, This was Sebastian Vettel’s garage.

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A couple of shots of Jacques Cartier square at night

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We then moved onto Quebec City and stayed at the Fairmont Chateau Frontenac, the iconic building of the city, province and Canada. The hotel has just recently undergone a multi million dollar refurbishment. We last stayed in the hotel 16 years ago and it looked a bit tired then but the renovations have really enhanced the hotel.

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Our modern design room

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Public areas of the hotel

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Hotel entrance

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After a couple of wonderful nights in Quebec we moved onto Kenauk nature, a private reserve near Montebello half way between Montreal and Ottawa. It is a private reserve around 100 square kms with 13 cabins dotted around on their own private lakes.

Our cabin
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Our boat and canoe

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For our last night we went to Mont Tremblant around 100km north of Montreal and stayed at the Fairmont Mont Tremblant.

The Fairmont

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Our room

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Some Fairmont properties have a hotel dog that you can take for walks. Here is Umi, Tremblant’s dog.

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We made our way back to YUL for our flight back to LHR.

Flight No AC864

A/C Reg no C-FNNU (the same A/C for the outward journey)

The flight was full this time so we took our seats 41G to J. We were about an hour late leaving as there were some connecting pax and some bags were removed. We departed on 24L.

IFE
The IFE selection was the same as on the outward leg so I finished off watching the Monuments Men and I also watched the Wolf of Wall Street - again a very good movie. I did experience one issue with the IFE. I had started listening to some music before the movies but the volume for the music is set higher then the movie. I had to stop the movies a few times and then the music immediately came on very loud so I had to turn the music down very quickly.

Meal service

The meal service was worse than on the way out, again it was chicken and quite poor the drinks service was after the meal again. The pre arrival snack was a slice of banana cake. The service was very poor. I asked for a cup of tea and milk wasn’t offered. I had to ask for it and a stirrer and this happened twice with the same FA. If you’re flying to the UK then surely you should know we take milk with our tea!

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Arrival into LHR

LHR and NATS are trailing a new arrivals procedure where they are slowing down arriving A/C to prevent holding patterns over the London area. Every time I have been into LHR before 11:00am we have been in a holding pattern. We did start to slow down over southern Ireland and we entered the stack and started our final approach so on my experience the new trial appears to be working. We landed on 27L and we had made the time up as we landed at the arrival time of 8.05am.

Approach over London

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LHR T2 Baggage hall

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The arrivals process was a lot different to our departure. The first thing I noticed was that one of the travelators was not working in the tunnel between the main & B terminal. We then went into the arrivals hall and none of the bags were coming out although once they started ours came out quite quickly. We had purchased a couple of wooden flat pack Muskoka chairs. The size and weight of them were in the luggage allowance but they went through the oversize baggage counter in Montreal.

We went to collect them once we had our main bags and on the conveyer there was a bag right at the end and one of our chairs near the flap where they came out. We waited for around ½ hour and nothing. I started to queue at the luggage help desk and the bag at the other end of the oversize conveyor was taken off, it started to move and my other chair came out as it must have been right behind the black rubber curtain. I assume that the bag was stopping the conveyor from working but there wasn’t a sign or anything stating this or anyone to take the bags off. The arrivals level is on the first floor so I had to take the elevators down one level to pick up my bus. I can see this causing queues once the terminal is fully operational as the elevators aren’t that big and that is the only way to departures and ground transportation with trolleys. There was no signage indicating the direction to go to catch the Hotel Hoppa service.

Flight Impressions

The most disappointing aspect of the flight was the service from the crew, from appearing to make things very hard for themselves to having contempt for your customers with the tea episode. I would have thought that on the outward flight they should have absolutely nailed it service wise as the flight was only half full but the service still was lacking. AC’s crew have always been happy and the service much better then BA in the past and I have chosen them over other airlines in the past due to the good service. On this experience I would consider others before AC.

The legroom and width was ok for the LHR-YUL flight but it would be uncomfortable for a longer flight to the west coast. The IFE was good and this is the most enjoyable part of the flight.


I hope you enjoyed reading my report as much as I did compiling and writing it.

Bretteee

Wow you got a real cake from YUL. I am impressed.

Well the AC meals are better than UNITED. Instead of lettuce AC do serve tasty salads.

On AA at least you get a piece of cheese which is the best part of the "crap" they serve.

AC at least do offer decent legroom unlike UA's 31" and BA's 31". Entertainment system unlike AA's actually works.

AC lost my suitcase and never found it again on a GVA to NYC flight via YUL.

They tried to ripp me off. Only after I sued in Court (Small Claims) did they pay me the full $1,600 (max allowed).

flyertalker00156

Air Canada is a disappointment. Thanks for sharing the new T2

restlessinRNO

Pjack94 - I enjoyed your trip report. So, did you walk Umi, the Fairmont dog?

tcook052

Molson Canadian is a taste of Canada? This polite Canadian would disagree.

Other than that minor error a very good TR and thanks for taking the time to write it. I'm aiming to visit at least YUL and maybe YQB is I can squeeze it in and the Fairmont's in each city are tops on my hotel list.

BlakeySFC

Great trip report, I flew a similar route (and had a similar trip) to Canada in 2010, flying LHR-YUL, YYZ-LHR.

My impressions of AC were similar to yours really, FAs were a bit rubbish, service and food were a bit rubbish but aircraft were newly renovated and the IFE decent.

Can't wait to visit the new LHR Terminal 2 in March next year, and trying out the new AC lounge there!

Pjack94

We were going to walk him but he had been to the vets and walks were unavailable.

DanielW

Cool pics.

The Fairmont pooch looks like a great idea too, I bet he gets well pampered.

djjaguar64

Thanks for the lovely review, unfortunately you had to fly Air Crapada.

krazykanuck

As a Canadian, a few thoughts on this TR. Thanks for reminding me to never fly AC if I can help it. I have fond memories of the "old" days. Back in early-2000s I was in F on a domestic flight providing ice cream and like 3-4 ft of legroom (maybe lie flat seats?). I don't recall. I was more of a fan of Canadian prior to the merger.

1) I don't know any canadians that willingly drink Molson Canadian
2) That food. .... No words.
3) that leg room looks miserable.

Though I will give credit to their MLL offerings. Makes domestic US lounges look like the run down terminal.

I can't think of how I'll willingly fly AC again. Their fares are generally INSANE between Canada and the US, and most of the time can save $$ booking on United and take the same flight.

Pjack94

I seem to have made a bit of a faux pas about the Molson Canadian We have Newcastle Brown Ale that gets exported everywhere and the tourists drink, is Molson Canadian the same?

tcook052

Sort of. Also like Foster's in Australia as I was informed while in SYD only the tourists order it.