24left

Had my first flight the other day. Was standby and thus ended up on it unexpectedly and it was interesting.

I'm sure you'll all recognize J








Moving into Y......









I like this one of the cabin view








Row 19




Monster bins




The crew made an announcement that you should place your carry-on bags in the bins sideways. I saw that each bin even has large display stickers showing a visual on how to place the bags.

Based on what I saw of the bins as well as the pax placing their items in there, no one read the graphic or they did but didn't care.

As you can see, not everyone "got the memo" LOL







The IFE.....



























OK, I admit I liked playing with the map and moving it around the screen





\\











Mood lighting




A few other observations:

Y Seats were ok and I would say fine for a 2-hour flight. But this is going to be interesting on a 5-hhour transcon or a 5+ hour TATL

Sure the bins are nice, but it's not a comfy bird back there. A pax tried to go to the lav while the crew were serving drinks. That aisle is extremely narrow and as much as I wanted to get photos from the back of the bus, I looked at the situation in the aisle and said no thanks.
.

Orcair

Thanks for the review of Y/photos! I'm now mildly terrified to fly it all the way to OGG

pitz

So who's moving onto these planes pilot-wise? Existing (but being displaced) E90? A320? New hires? Management pilots? Is this a coveted type for the pilots to fly at this point? Would anyone give up being a 767 F/O to take captain on this fleet?

Fiordland

I don't know specifically, however as a general rule pilots get paid more for flying bigger aircraft with more passengers. I suspect the vast majority want to fly the 777. Money tends to be a good motivator,

Fiordland

The mood lighting is designed to counteract the emotional effect of being in the most cramp mainline aircraft.

The Lev

@24left thanks for the comprehensive photo gallery. They really highlight just how narrow the aisle is.

Looks like you were seated in 19A with plenty of legroom. Can you confirm whether or not the seats in that row recline (I assume not). Did you notice the legroom in row 19 vs. row 20 behind you?

Stranger

True for AC, but not necessarily all airlines. I believe LH is not like that.

However another consideration: some like stays abroad, some like to be back home for the night.

CZAMFlyer

I'm sure Air Canada will take your preference to heart.

As for the rest of your post, you have ably demonstrated that my comment: "Surely there are alternative methods of transport ... for those times in which one must absolutely positively remain connected." was right on the mark.

By the way, my work involves travel. A lot of it. Likely more than most. And all completely unscheduled and spontaneous. It's an adventure some days.

CZAMFlyer

There are as many answers to this question as there are pilots. Progression through the company is not always a linear or incremental process. Yes, plenty of widebody FOs will bid 737 captain, but many pilots remain on aircraft types long after they are eligible to move on because of preference for home base (cost of living, hate for commuting, kids in school, spouse's employment etc). Some will do whatever to takes to earn as high a pay scale as possible, others will settle comfortably in their preferred base on a smaller aircraft. Some love bidding Japan or Europe or Australia while others relish being home almost every evening and avoiding the ravages of large & sudden changes in time zones. Some pilots don't like flying one of Airbus/Boeing/Embraer and will avoid those families. Some seek the prestige of being a 777 captain, others could care less about perceived status. It's a constant balance between pay and lifestyle, with personal factors sprinkled into the mix as lives evolve.

I suspect any slowdown in pilot conversion training may be due to a lack of pilots overall. They're adding airplanes to the fleet without substantial subtraction at the moment. The recruiting office is busy.

24left

@Orcair LOL

I'll add the additional comments:

Boarding the 738 MAX

As I and many others were standby for this flight, I asked the GA what the procedure was since I rarely do Rapidair or standby. She said "with the other aircraft such as the 777s, standby is called after Zone 1 and 2 board. With the 738, standbys are called before boarding begins. I thought that was an interesting comment so I asked why. She said that "boarding for this aircraft is set for 35 minutes and the others take much longer." I can certainly confirm that AC takes almost forever to board the 777/788/789 and recently the 333s I've flown when departing from Canada. I've observed much better performance at the Asian stations. And we all know how many of the Asian airlines can board a triple in 20 minutes.

Standbys were then called. Boarding for the 738 began on time pretty much. Based on my observations, the aircraft was boarded in 35 minutes - this despite pax not knowing how to store carry-ons. lol

Seating

A few FTers have also asked me about J and Y seating and space. As one can tell from the photos, I was in 19A. Boarding was rather fast so I think I was really lucky to be able to board early to get the photos of the empty cabins. That said, I didn't have time to look at spacing between rows in either preferred or non-preferred. The width of the seat seems to be an issue as I observed some large pax in the rows in front of me and there was "spillage" by them into their neighbours' seats such that arm rests were all raised in those rows.

Again, I think we can all manage the very restrictive space for 1-2 hours, but between the narrow seats, the lack of padding, the extremely narrow aisle and whatever adventure may befall us in those rear lavs.....I repeat what I believe...this will not be very pleasant on transcons or over the ponds. I can't even imagine how crew will serve drinks or BoB and then try to accommodate people who need to get to the lav.

Since the aircraft was purchased for the economics it will deliver, I am quite sure pax comfort was that option AC did not purchase - at least in Y.

@The Lev

19A was great if only because of the view out the window (plane porn will be posted in the other thread). Thus, I was a little distracted.

After the FA gave all 6 of us in row 19 the safety and emergency exit instructions, I took a photo of that wall panel. Very cool actually.

I did not even think about seat recline as I was too busy trying to get photos for the AC FT forum members. (The things I do for you guys, LOL)

I would probably need another flight to be able to check row spacing/width, the rear lavs and the galley.
Or some other adventurous FTer can do it.

eigenvector

Not to mention that lav use increases a lot once flight time hits 5 hours or a meal is served. Most people won't really need to "go" on a short-haul flight or even YYZ-YVR but on TATLs and Hawaii flights, almost every pax will need to use the lav at least once if not more. With the lack of a mid-cabin lav as you would have on a wide-body, that's a lot of people that have to traipse the entire length of the Y cabin. It's a long walk back if you are sitting near the front (25 rows!) not to mention a whopping 76 pax per lav in Y.

StuckInYYZ

Something just occurred to me after reading 24L's photo post (very nice BTW). It was also something I've noticed of a lot of people as of late... The infographic for loading the bins....where is it posted? Is it somewhere visible to people who are not 5'9"? I will admit, but I don't pay attention (but then again, when I travel, I've learned a long time ago to put my backpack in sideways to maximize the storage...and protect my stuff in said backpack). But most people I see are not tall enough to clearly read the instructions or see the pictures inside.

Then again, for me, a lot of people also seem to ignore the seating letters and sit where they decide works for them... Multiple times over the last 10 flights... but that's another set of stories for another thread.

pitz

Not only that, but if one lav goes inop, will they have much choice other than divert? Will they even be able to dispatch with an inop lav? How bad does an onboard situation have to get before that happens?

24left

@StuckInYYZ
Thanks.

As for the infographics for the bins, as you can see from the 2 photos I posted, they are easy to see inside each bin. Well, at least I noticed them but I guarantee most others did not. People are distracted when they board. Some don't know that row 36 comes after row 26. And as mentioned, clearly some did not listen to the announcement made that carry-on bags should be placed in the bin as specified..

I recall watching AA FAs walk down the aisles of the narrow body aircraft literally re-arranging carry-on bags in the bins. Who knows, maybe AC FAs might do the same if people keep placing their bags in there without maximizing the space available.

StuckInYYZ

@24left
Thanks! That actually helped!

Based on that, my suspicion is that a lot of shorter people can’t see it clearly and if the carry-on fits, then it’s “good enough”. I see this as to where all the arguments start. Unfortunately I don’t see it getting any better without better hiring a different mindset type of person as well as a passenger conditioning regimen. Does any non-FF actually read the boarding passes?

I was chatting with a co-op from one of my change management teams that if I had to build out an L1 operations team, I will usually select someone with a friendly personality and a solid basic understanding of computers over a tech guru any day. We can always tech process and more tech skills to them. We can’t teach empathy and (in many cases) good manners.