tcook052

Thanks to etgohomeok for sharing their flight feedback with photos but let's please move the general Rouge discussion to the master Rouge thread which is here and save this thread for flight reports and feedback.

Regards,

tcook052
Ac forum Moderator

Cjacq

To preface: I'm Canadian, but I rarely fly AC because most of my work travel is US/Europe and I live in Europe. I am also exhausted and jetlagged and grumpy

Just had a holiday home with my wife and 3 year old. Flew AC Rouge with preferred seats for a bit of comfort. The flight over was pretty great. Kiddo was fully entertained by the iPad we brought that was stocked with games and movies in addition to the Rouge Player. Wife and I rented iPads and all was well.

The flight back? Kid mostly slept (yay!). I very rarely sleep on flights. Even in a nice lie-flat seat, I'll get an hour or two at most. I was counting on renting an iPad (or two, if my wife wasn't going to sleep). We were close to the front, so there shouldn't have been availability issues.

There was no IFE announcement and they served dinner (inedible) quickly, and then didn't clear for 2 hours, which is inexcusable on a redeye as far as I'm concerned. When they did eventually come around to clear trays, I asked and was told there were no iPads on board (but there would be on the flight back, as if that would help?).

I get that Rouge is a leisure airline, but my goodness, this lack of integrated IFE is making me crazy. I don't want to watch 7 hours of movies on my phone.

I will probably have to travel to Canada more often in the next year (my elderly father is very unwell). Is this common? Should I just decamp to WJ? Or are they as bad?

(to balance, because I feel bad now about giving out: The Jazz regional flight we had YSJ-YYZ was amazing. It was late at night, kiddo was grumpy and crying, and a FA brought all the kids in the cabin a selection of snacks for free! That was the most amazing thing I've seen in flying in a long time. They got pringles, Swedish berries, and an enormous kitkat each. Each!:-::-::-

jc94

I didn't want to quote your whole post but can I ask what route this was? If it's LGW YYZ you can try LHR YYZ mainline. If it's a AC Rouge only route, options vary greatly based on route. LH or UA may be an option to Europe. If wondering about other *A non Rouge options on specific routes that might (?) be better as or in a different thread.

I'd write in about the iPads. Even if you don't want or need a discount code I'd personally be interested in why there were no iPads. I assumed they lived in the aircraft or were as standard as KitKats in snack baskets.

newcdn

Westjet also has a similar ife system

AC Mainline has proper seatback integrated ife

songsc

I certainly do not expect the IFE to work 100% of the time. Even the ones in J/F on top notch carriers are down from time to time. So my suggestion is to pack your own iPad. All airlines have their rainy days.

But not having any iPads for rent seemed pretty odd for me. I suggest writing in.

Jumper Jack

I felt like two hours more and my knee will literally be bent.

jc94

Same after 4h. But not in a preferred seat. That said you have a few inches on me.

Cjacq

I just wrote in- I'll make sure to update this thread with the response I get.

The route is the catch. I can fly DUB - YSJ (a tiny regional airport) in two flights with AC and DUB-YYZ is a rouge route now. It is possible for me to fly to YHZ with WJ and then drive home but flying directly there is preferable. I'm also loathe to change to WJ because I don't get any miles at all anywhere then

As for "bring an iPad" -- I did. But as I'm sure everyone with small kiddos (or who has travelled near small kiddos) can understand, that was prioritised for keeping her occupied, so wasn't available to me . I suppose I could get another.

tcook052

I was on ACr recently YVR-LAS AC1832 & AC1897 on the 767 and came away with a positive impression so thought I would share some photos and thoughts.

Having an AC bump credit in hand opted to use it on a ticket ex YEG via YVR and paid the $30 each direction for the preferred seats roundtrip and was glad I had as there's good legroom, roughly 4 inches between knees and seat back in 14A, and priority boarding.







I found the preferred bulkhead seat really doesn't offer any extra legroom, has no underseat storage and has slightly narrowed seats due to the tray table being tucked in the armrest which is immovable so row 14 was better to me.

The in-flight service was good but only bought a beer & cashews while reading some Paul Theroux as I'd had a big breakfast before departing YEG. The Mill Street Organic beer was a larger 475 ml can instead of the smaller 350 ml I was expecting and the nuts & beer came in at $10 which isn't too bad compared to ground pricing.

The all-female flight crew on the outbound drew a cheer from some onboard and greeted the passenger upon deplaning.

Overall a fairly normal short haul flight for my first ACr flights and would fly them again depending upon circumstances and other options available but would definitely opt up to preferred seats.

YEG_SE4Life

You have your outside voice on.

FlyerTalker70

Just thought I'd post this quick write up before it escapes my memory (I flew this nearly 2 weeks ago) - to summarize:

• Ground Service : Surprisingly, AC treats Rogue flights like any other AC flight for the purpose of *A status. I was able to check in my 2 bags at the J pavilion at YYZ thanks to my UA Gold status (each bag was tagged priority as well). Upon clearing security I was able to get into the MLL and eat something, take a shower, and do some work prior to the flight. Similarly, I was granted priority boarding (Zone 2) allowing me to cut into the kettles just before they were to board!
• In Flight Experience:
  • Aircraft : The flight was serviced by a 767 which was probably delivered to AC before the Cosby show was on the air!
  • General : Cabin crew consisted of mainly teenagers many of whom appeared to have one too many red bulls!
  • Meals: No booze (fortunately I pre-drank in the MLL before boarding) and meals seemed to be on the light side with limited variety (i.e. 2-3 options to choose from)
  • Seat : Easily the biggest drawback of the flight. At first they didn't feel or look that bad to sit on. After an hour of sitting on them I felt a pain in the rear I haven't felt even on long-haul flights in Y with UA (i.e. my 14 hour flight to NRT). It's not really a case of not enough leg room as I always find a way to stretch my legs out one way or another, it's just that the seats are plane nasty to sit on for long periods of time. They make the Ricaro slimline seats feel like they're made out of real Corinthian leather.
  • AVOD : There was a decent sized touch screen entertainment system which had some recent films and TV shows (i.e. Season 5 of Silicon Valley). However, I spent most of my time using my iPad or working on my MacBook
  • Wifi : No wifi service was offered on this flight
• Other: An interesting quirk of flying Rogue is you earn a 25% class of service bonus on RDM when crediting miles to UA (totalling 75% milage on my K fare)

Would I fly them again?
Depends on the length of the flight and alternatives. For these short haul flights (i.e. < 7 hours) it's fine, but I couldn't stand flying this thing medium-long haul (i.e. YVR to KIX)! If this were operated by another non-*A airline (i.e. WS) then the answer would be hell no regardless of distance or price - the *A Gold perks made up for much of the suckiness of the flight! The additional RDM thanks to the UA glitch certainly made this whole experience a slightly less bitter pill to swallow. One thing that escapes me is that in spite of it being a discount brand of AC, the fare I paid for YYZ -> MAN on Rogue was about the same as the fare I paid for the return (LHR -> YYZ) on AC mainline. Furthermore, I managed to snag an open jaw LHR -> LAX, EWR -> LHR for $515 CAD on UA mainline which gives me access to E+ seating and all the other benefits that befell a UA elite (which was around $200 CAD less than I paid for this YYZ -> MAN, LHR -> YYZ open jaw).

It should be noted that this route offers PE called Premium Rogue. The main difference here is supposedly the seats are more comfortable to sit in and they'll offer you booze. Unfortunately, the cheapest upgrade option I saw was over $340 CAD via BidUpgrade which IMHO is too much to pay for such a minor upgrade on a short flight (that was also the least you could bid, so there was also a chance that you'll not win the bid!) To give you some perspective on upgrades, I spent $500 USD last year to upgrade a ORD -> HNL flight to F on UA. For that money I got to be seated on a lie flat seat for 10+ hours, be served a couple of meals and earn double PQM to boot! Similarly I spent $700 USD last year to upgrade FRA -> YYZ on LH which allowed me to sit upper deck on a 747 with lie flat seats and 5 course meal service, access the LH lounge (I was *A Kettle then), earn double PQM and RDM for a 8 hour flight!

Apologies for not having any photos to share. I suspect if you Google tacky aircraft interiors you'll likely find numerous photos of the Rogue 767

Safe Travels,

James

Stranger

Plane nasty, eh? I like that one...

BTW I would not call YVR-KIX "medium haul," nor this "short haul."

And BTW^2 these 763s are newer than the Cosby show.

24left

@j2simpso

BTW there is a rouge thread for reviews

Air Canada rouge Flight Report and Feedback Thread


Also

Um, rouge is only a LCC for AC, not for customers. But that is a whole other conversation that pops up in the main rouge thread

​​​​​​​

jc94

This is of course true, and we certainly joke about it here as much as we do enhancements. But what does AC actually define Rouge as? Or do they not even try and pretend it’s anything more than a cheaper way for them to operate flights without actually giving customers cheaper fares?

To the OP, status certainly makes any flight in Y more pleasant.

One thing that confuses me... since when does Rouge have AVOD (IFE?). Or did you pay to rent one of their iPads?

RangerNS

Cheaper, possibler. Rouge allows flights to otherwise impossible destinations, and also short term network reconfiguration to better service more profitable routes. Some routes have been un-Rouged, after all.

It serves to keep the unions honest and a way to test customers. Also, it keeps the dude-bro run "express" airlines honest and scared.