Segment 2
Flight: AC876
Route: YYZ-FRA
Date: 8/28/16
Equipment: Boeing 787-9
Registration: C-FGEO
Cabin: J

After a weekend pit stop in Toronto to catch up with old friends and celebrate the birthday my mom (who was en route to PVG from YOW) and my best friend's mom share, I resumed my little jaunt on Sunday night. I took the Union Pearson Express, whose fare has come down to a quite reasonable C$12, to YYZ, printed my boarding passes (thanks to AC's unpredictable mobile boarding pass availability), proceeded through security (I really wish Canada would implement something like Pre✓ so Nexus members wouldn't have to take out their laptops), and headed to the International Maple Leaf Lounge.

Much has been made of AC's noticeable cutbacks to the food offerings in its Domestic and Transborder MLLs, but as of August 28, 2016, the International MLL at YYZ still had a relatively respectable selection comprising a couple salads, a couple soups, veggies and dip, and a few hot entrées. The make-your-own pho station that was there on my last visit a couple months ago seems to have disappeared. While I can do without faux-Vietnamese food, I have to say that the pathetic water pressure and temperature of the showers and the excruciating internet speed at AC's flagship lounge are rather unacceptable. The lounge can also get quite crowded at peak times, as it was on this occasion.

I headed to the gate at the scheduled boarding time of 8:50pm, but boarding was delayed by ~20 minutes. After a relatively long boarding process (for a B789), we pushed back at 10:10pm, 30 minutes behind schedule. I'm a big fan of AC's new business class cabin, especially on the B787. While the colour palette lacks some warmth, the seat is very comfortable and the IFE system is excellent.

This being a late-night departure, AC offered its "late evening express supper" service, which is an abbreviated meal service with two entrée and one dessert choice(s) instead of the standard four and two, and where all courses are served at once. On this flight, the mains were:

Thai red curry chicken, steamed jasmine rice, edamame, bok-choy; or
Roasted cod loin, lemon thyme butter, Golden Jewel Blend grain medley, balsamic roasted vegetables

The dessert was just fresh seasonal fruit. Dinner also came with a simple (and tiny) mixed greens salad, (barely) warm bread, and a cheese course of Oka, Camembert, Cheddar, crackers, and grapes.

Because I try to maintain a fairly healthy diet and saw that the dinner options planned for my upcoming LH leg were quite rich, I decided to order a DBML (Diabetic Meal) based on some advice I saw on FT. This turned out to be a big mistake, at least as far as AC's interpretation is concerned. As noted in this PSA, do not order the DBML on AC unless you want a meal that is eight parts white rice, a tiny portion of plain chicken, and a few sad, steamed vegetables. Thankfully, not everyone opted to have dinner, so there were extras of both regular entrée choices. I decided to go with the cod, which was exactly as forgettable as I've come to expect for AC's J catering.

As the name would suggest, the "express supper" service was quite efficient, which was great for those who wanted to sleep on a flight with just under seven hours of time in the air. I usually have a hard time sleeping on planes, but was actually able to catch a few hours of shut-eye in this case.

On TATL flights, AC provides an à la carte breakfast order card guests fill out prior to departure. There seem to be a few different iterations floating around, and the one on this flight was identical to what 24left shared here. Like 24left, I'm a big fan of soy (and almond) milk. There was some confusion as to the availability of soy milk on this flight, but remembering this advice from yyznomad, I persisted, and after speaking to three different crew members, found success!

We landed just after 11:00am taxied for 25 minutes to a remote stand (of course...this being FRA). But unlike more painful remote stand experiences in the past, this one was quite efficient. The crew made sure to let J passengers deplane first, and the bus we boarded closed its doors and left for the terminal as soon as all the J passengers got on (instead of waiting for it fill up).

After taking the SkyLine train and proceeding through FRA's highly efficient security, I made my way to LH's enormous Senator Lounge in Concourse Z, from where I'm writing this post. The lounge is stylish, bright, and not crowded at all. It is well stocked with German goodies (including Bircher muesli, my all-time favourite breakfast item), offers fast and stable WiFi, and is equipped with very nice showers supplying fantastic water pressure. AC could really learn something for its Star partner in this area, though to be fair, I hear the MLL at FRA is actually quite nice. (It is located in Concourse B, where North America-bound flights leave from, so I intend to check it out on my return.)

I still have seven (!) hours to kill before my next leg to JNB (looking forward to trying the B748 and LH's new J cabin for the first time!), so I'm going sign off now to do some reading and terminal exploring. For those of you still reading despite the lack of photos, thanks for following along!

Mileage Tally: 6,212/49,313