Originally Posted by
sydneyracquelle
Moved from Canada to USA 20 years ago. I am always shocked at how much bad service Canadians are willing to put up with with many industries being oligopolies. Cellphones and airlines come to mind. They just don’t have any basis of comparison.
A view shared by many of us who’ve lived/worked abroad. Overpriced mediocrity is the de facto Canadian standard (and it’s amazing how proud some of it are). Don’t mention it too loudly though - the closet nationalists get offended when anyone points that out.
OP - security is outside AC’s control. And the lack of priority lanes is a COVID thing - think they’re just severely understaffed, so it’s only open to Nexus/trusted travellers (even J pax don’t have access in some airports - like YVR).
For the rest, understand that AC views it’s Y ops - particularly domestic/transborder as ULCC pax (despite the fares being mainline). There is a relatively higher level of contempt for Y pax writ large - along the lines of the premium-focused EU3 (until the ME3 shook things up) - as opposed to the US3 levels of indifference - although the latter are much better at Y customer service recovery after IRROPs.
The meal/drink service times probably have something to do with the number of cabin crew they carry, or the way they allocate them across cabins, but yes, wait times for meals and drinks are exponentially higher on AC if you aren’t in the first third of the Y cabin, than they are on any EU airline.
Bottom line: if you intend to fly Y on AC ex-US, you’re better off on just about any other airline unless your AC ticket is heavily discounted. If you fly J, it’ll be alright in normal times. PY is a wash - depending on where you want to go, a Y detour to Canada may or may not be worth it.