At 6:00am, YYZ was buzzing with activity at domestic departures. Priority Check-In had no lines, however there was some confusion about where to tag my bag to, and if I could be put on the standby list for an upgrade. Unfortunately, I would have to pick up my bag in ZRH, but thankfully it seems LX allows one to check in early, so it's just a matter of heading back up to departures.
2014-07-28 06.03.10 by
jurastudent, on Flickr
With my NEXUS card, I was through security in a jiffy and took a left turn towards the Maple Leaf Lounge. Despite being based in YYZ, believe it or not, this is my first time visiting the Maple Leaf Lounge in YYZ. The dragons were confused about whether I was allowed access, as I had a Y boarding pass to Montreal, no *G status but Business Class boarding passes for my longhaul segment. There was a line up building behind me as the dragons tried to figure out whether to allow me access or not.
It seems like everyone is an Air Canada elite these days. The lounge was quite busy at this time of the day, with quite a long lineup just to get some of the hot breakfast items (I saw there were eggs and sausages.) By the way, the breakfast spread is better than many US lounges I've seen, so +1 to AC for that.
2014-07-28 06.28.12 by
jurastudent, on Flickr
2014-07-28 06.40.24 by
jurastudent, on Flickr
Eventually I found an empty pair of seats and set up shop there. Unfortunately, the pair across from me were talking loudly and throwing profanities out, all very proud about what a great deal closing they were going to have.
2014-07-28 07.05.02 by
jurastudent, on Flickr
I left for Gate D26 almost 20 minutes before boarding time. The plan was to break out the DSLR and get some good shots of the new 787-800 that was going to take us to Montreal. Now, I know it's a short flight, and I have it booked for LHR-YYZ next January, but this was one Economy flight I was actually excited for just because it would be my first 787 ride. In my excitement I walked in the wrong direction to the 40s gates and had to walk all the way back.
2014-07-28 07.09.35 by
jurastudent, on Flickr
But, this is what I ended up seeing.
2014-07-28 07.17.16-1 by
jurastudent, on Flickr
My facial expressions progressed as follows:
In case you don't know, that is clearly not a 787. It was a rather decrepit 767-300. Oh well, I'll survive this one-hour flight, but now I'm praying AC doesn't pull another last second switcheroo on my LHR-YYZ flight that I purposely extended my layover just to ride it.
When boarding was called, it seemed like everyone had priority boarding. In fact, the lice lineup for priority boarding was longer than the regular line. And they just kept coming, with us plebians just standing there and waiting. The line was also further stuffed up because the seat assignments had all gone awry because of the last minute aircraft swap (at 6am I was told at check-in it would be the 787.)
Until... they paged a bunch of names, and I heard my name.
"Mr. tng11, here's your new boarding pass." Not a window, but heck, Seat 32K for 3F? Sign me up!
I haven't tried the AC "pods" yet, so it wasn't a total loss. ^