tyberius

They still have F coming out of Toronto, on the 777.

winnipegrev

Sounds like typical spin you'd expect them to put out. If they really wanted more J seats they would rip out F and put more J seats in the same space.

Are you serious in buying BA's spin/thinking the routes these 747s without modern F are being put on are to "increase business class seat capacity"? Vancouver, Phoenix, Cape Town and Las Vegas. Pretty obviously not, unless Phoenix and Las Vegas are somehow wildly higher yielding than I think.

What it amounts to is BA not wanting to dilute its F product with outdated seats currently on some 744s, and not wanting to update them since the 744s are exiting the fleet. 7 are disappearing by 2015, I'm sure many more soon after.

Let's see if these "super-high-J-demand" routes YVR/PHX/CPT/LAS get dropped to a 772 with less J seats or a 77W with more J seats once 747s exit en masse.

bocastephen

Ummm...that's exactly what they're doing.

winnipegrev

They can probably fit quite a few more than 14 J seats in the space there are currently 14 F in. I mean rip out the F seats and increase total seat capacity.

The reason they aren't is these 747s are going to the bone yard soon. This is clearly a financial decision to not retrofit the product and get all the revenue they can out of it during its last year selling it as J, not that they necessarily wanted more J seats.

loosegoose

I have been on it 3 times now (YVR/HKG/YVR) and will not hesitate to book it again if that's my routing. The single seat is just fine and the middle aisle seats are almost as good, except for the lack of privacy.

I slept just as well as I do in a pod.

loosegoose

As a FF you must know that all the US carriers offer cheaper seat prices ex Canada than AC does. The same thing goes for European carriers who will route you throughout their home base to a final destination for a lot less money than AC.

loosegoose

Only on one of 2 daily flights and F flies fairly empty at times except when the back is oversold. I have family in London who travel to YYZ regularly usually in paid J and they almost always get upgraded to F. Last trip their baby was given his own F seat for sleeping.

CloudsBelow

This thread is about AC's HD.
AC sends it on YVRLHR
BA has stopped selling F on the same route.
Are you saying BA is seeing so much high yielding demand for J to/from YVR that they wanted the additional F seats for J inventory? And, In future, BA will send more J seats into YVR to meet this high yielding demand??

YVR is in the same BA press release as Phoenix and Las Vegas. You'd be called insane defending that position for either of those routes. At least CPT is keeping (and selling!) F seats on 1 of their 2 dailies (departing within a couple hours of each other).
Wasn't BA to YVR double-daily 747? Wonder why they didn't compromise like they did with CPT?

yyj9

I don't know if that is true. After my HKG->YVR experience I will actively seek it out and reroute to take it. For people with a travel policy that doesn't allow J, but does allow PE on long flights, this is a fantastic option. AC may have read the corporate climate correctly on this one. You may not like J as much as pod J, but I certainly like PE better than old Y!
And I will get a chance to try out new J in Nov, but I am travelling with someone, so I am probably going to like it better than the pod in this situation, as well.

Jagboi

The current plan is the 744's will be in service until 2023. Given the configuration of OF, it wold be difficult to fit many more J seats in the nose. Given the cost or retrofitting, both in terms of seat cost and out of service time cost, it makes more sense to rerate the aircraft as a 66J configuration and keep the OF seats for the gold members.

bocastephen

I don't know what their demand picture looks like - I do know they have decided to remove the softer selling F seats to make room for more in-demand J seats. No changes to the Y cabin are being made.

sp4294

Flying J on AC153 or AC181 YYZ-YVR in late October - showing as B773 and currently using A319/320 on summer schedule. What fights are these B773 frames continuing on as out of YVR in October? Which one would be B77HD? Is there a risk of substitution to A320 (Sunday morning)?

winnipegrev

The 744s with old F which are the ones I was referring to are being junked next year.

mwherman2000

Open Letter to David I. Richardson, Chairman of the Board of Directors, Air Canada regarding the removal of Calin Rovinescu as President and CEO, Air Canada (https://www.facebook.com/aircanada)

Air Canada Maple Leaf Lounge
Vancouver, BC
Canada

July 26, 2014

Re: Removal of Calin Rovinescu as President and CEO for his roles in the evaluation, selection, approval, and commissioning of the Boeing 777 aircraft on Air Canada routes

Dear Mr. Richardson,

I’m asking you as Chairman of the Board of Directors, Air Canada, and the other members of the Board, to remove Mr. Rovinescu as President and CEO, Air Canada, including all his roles and responsibilities, for his participation – to the point of being negligent – in the following:

1. Evaluation, selection, approval and commissioning of the Boeing 777 aircraft on Air Canada routes;

2. Failing to inform Air Canada Elite customers of the inadequate seating available on these aircraft to the point of being deceptive on the Air Canada and Aeroplan web sites;

3. Failing to inform Air Canada customers in general of the inadequate seating available on these aircraft to the point of being deceptive on the Air Canada and Aeroplan web sites; and

4. Failing to inform Air Canada employees of the inadequate seating available on these aircraft – especially, the passenger agents in Vancouver.

My July 19th Air Canada flight (AC 1175, Seat 25A) was the worst flight, on the worst aircraft, in the worst seat and seat arrangement in my more than 50 years of flying on Air Canada.

In addition, today July 26th, I was unknowingly booked on another Air Canada Boing 777 aircraft (AC 102, Seat 21G) and the Vancouver Air Canada passenger agent at the Air Canada Priority check-in had no idea – not a clue – what I was talking about then I asked what seating arrangement was on flight AC 102. It took the Vancouver Air Canada station manager to resolve this issue.

Both claimed the information on the Boeing 777 seating being inadequately narrow was or should be available on the Air Canada and Aeroplan web sites – neither of them were accurate/truthful in this regard. It is both deceptive and negligent on the part of Mr. Rovinescu to commission the Boeing 777 aircraft into service without adequately informing its own employees.

If it is Mr. Rovinescu’s intention to turn Air Canada into an Asian-style airline (with 500-600 passengers packed onto a single aircraft with pigs and chickens in the aisle ways), this is not the airline that its employees, partners and customers have been working to build for more than 75 years and with millions and millions of hours of effort.

The Boeing 777 aircraft does not belong in the Air Canada fleet - maybe it’s acceptable in other parts of the world and with other airlines but not in Canada and not with Air Canada.

Again, Mr. Richardson, I ask you and the Board of Directors to remove Mr. Rovinescu from all of his positions and responsibilities at Air Canada.

Please advise me on what the formal next steps are in this process of having Mr. Rovinescu removed as his positions as President and CEO, Air Canada.

Sincerely,


Michael Herman
Air Canada Customer for more than 50 years

Admiral Ackbar

You do know only a subset of AC777 are of the sardine can HD flavour right? And your letter will have 0, zilch, nada, niet effect because these aircraft make them piles of money (for now at least).