Just a quick question. I have had a look around and see that Air Canada seems to be an Economy and Business only class airline. Business being known as Executive First. Please correct me if I am wrong on this first point.

Assuming I am right, have Air Canada ever had a 3 or 4 class service that includes a First class offering as well as Business?

Thanks in advance

Right now its only Business + Economy. Business class with seats only is called Executive class, the ones with lie flat seating (longer haul travel) is called Executive First.

Whether they operated First Class before, you need to ask the historians (several here)

Yes, Air Canada used to have a 1st class but that was removed in the late 90's, IIRC.

Thanks for both replying. And for clarifying the biz seats and biz lie flat. ^

Think it was early 90s--1992, maybe.

To put things in a bit of perspective:

Until the late 60s (when I was a little kid), many airlines had first and economy class. Both had way better food and service than today. One of my memories is the absolutely great food on CP Air which we sometimes took from Montreal to Amsterdam.

In the 70s or early 80s, a number of airlines added business class - presumably bigger seats than economy, but not a luxurious or expensive as first.

In the 90s and later many western airlines started going back to a two class system (presumably because they had trouble filling the expensive first class seats). The top class is usually classified as business, presumably because it is not as expensive or luxurious as on airlines with true first class.


With all the griping we do today, it is worth pointing out how much more comfortable flying is today compared to the 40+ years ago. One real luxury today is the various forms of video available - I remember going stir crazy as a kid on on flights as long as 13h on a Lufthansa 707 with nothing to do. And in spite of the better service in those days, I wouldn't trade 1960s first class (was in it once or twice) for the 180 degree lie flat seats such as in Exec First which we have today.

By longer haul, GHT means to write, that Executive First is an international product on transatlantic, transpacific and south american routes by AC. You can get the lie flat seat on a YYZ-BGI, YYZ-LAX and YYZ-YVR/YUL route, but that's plain old Executive Class.

It would be hard getting a 707 to fly for 13h without in-flight refueling.

Depending on how you look at it.............

Seat wise http://www.aircanada.com/en/about/fleet/ you either get Executive First suites, Executive class seats

Service wise, you are right Executive First service (international) or Executive class service......

Then again, sometimes they substitute/interline aircrafts and certain routes operating different seat products

It's a cycle that continually repeats itself. A la QF, which is removing F on all routes except LAX and LHR.
Airlines such as CX which are adding premium Y.

When the economy gets better F will re-appear, premium Y will take some other form.
These transitions cost millions. Some how, some where, there is a manager that can justify it.

Your absolutely right - the flight we regularly took was Johannesburg-Nairobi-Munich (or was it Frankfurt? I think it stopped in Munich where we got off, perhaps because direct to Frankfurt would have been too long? Anyone know?). I only recall once getting of the plane at Nairobi, and that was to get some sort of vaccination, with the after effects making the rest of the flight even worse!

Having managers like that must be why the airlines are all so profitable

AC and CP both had F--the menu was great and meals were served off a trolley--very similar to how they do it in some F's now. IFE was still bad--no real choices. One time on a flight when I decided to have the cornish hen, a whole one was put on my plate!!

Re: food

Considering how far North America has advanced w/r/t what is good food versus what is crap food...I would take any nostalgic references to the grand food of the good old days of air travel with an enormous grain of salt.

Preferably, Diamond kosher salt. Or an imported fleur de sel scraped by virgins. Or a nice Himalayan salt.

To be honest, I'm a tad drunk at the moment.

It has to do with the fact that the Government of Canada is AC's largest customer and Treasury Board guidelines which prohibit most GoC employees from travelling in "First" class. By having their "Executive First" or "Executive" class, GoC employees are able to buy J class tix and still comply with TBS guidelines.