Adam Smith

Given the current lack of service in J, it's really not, though.

canadiancow

What's offered in J on Rapidair right now? (serious question)
What's offered in PY? (serious question)
Boarding zone? 1 to 2.
Guarantee to be in the first 4 rows? Definitely not, since it's all one cabin.

Maybe you can argue it's not a downgrade (though my last two points show actual downgrades), but you certainly can't argue it's an upgrade. The point made was that these international paid J travelers would have been in Y on Rapidair, which is nonsense.

ride red

Differences by selling it PY vs J that I can think of:

-125% miles vs 150% miles.
-If they sold it as all J, then everyone would be in group 1, with it being PY there will be 2 groups.
-10k points each way compared to 15k for Aeroplan redemptions.
-lower cost for AC if they sell it as PY and have to downgrade most of the cabin to Y when subbing in another aircraft.
-Check in at the regular Priority desk as opposed to the Business desk for non-50k+.

Do you still get Limo transfer from domestic PY to paid international J if they're on the same ticket?

The same:
-Food - none.
-Lounge - nope (but could change by summer)
-2 bags. bag priority

What am I missing

As far as pricing goes, they can price it however they want regardless of what class it books into. So that can't be the reason they decided on PY.

canadiancow

I don't think anyone's debating whether it should be all PY or all J. The question is about whether this makes more sense than just running mainline J/Y aircraft.

Limo service has been suspended.

But are you sure there's no food?

ChrisA330

Food is now only offered on flights longer than 2 hours.

RangerNS

Particular aircraft have so many hours, the fleet has so many hours. I suspect the Jetz have relatively few, compared to ML (though back when likely would have had relatively more when they were converted).

AC is perhaps hedging against the MAX being super delayed, or other such nonsense. Fly the weirdos in the weird time so the old workhouses have life left in the aftetimes.

Symmetre

Surely you must have done a couple of YYZ-YOW legs in your various EYW runs, CC. But in the event you haven't, it's a 45-minute flight, and still under an hour gate-to-gate. YYZ-YUL isn't much longer, There's scarcely time for a cup of coffee, much less food.

YOW has typically been E190 service, for the most part. These are commuter flights, There might be a half dozen people on each flight who do not have priority boarding of some sort, with an abnormally high proportion of SEs on every flight. The vast, vast majority of pax board with zone 1 or 2.

I have not flown this route since things locked down in March, so things may have changed with the new covid procedures, but there you have it. Prior to lockdown I did it a couple of times each month.

Oh - and generally no spare aircraft in YOW. When something goes mechanical they most often deadhead a plane from YYZ or YUL. It is unusual when they are able to solve an IRROPS issue with a plane that's already sitting on the tarmac, though it does happen now and then.

canadiancow

YYZ<->YUL in the morning had a hot breakfast.
YYZ<->YOW, and YYZ<->YUL outside those times, had some kind of food tray.

There was always time for it.

I remember a specific flight where a few of us strangers finished 3 bottles of the Picens.

As you said, many things have changed, and it seems like there is no more food offered on those flights.

But there certainly was before, and that's why I asked the question.

Adam Smith

The Jetz aircraft definitely sit on the ground a lot, although they have rotated different fins through that sub-fleet from time to time. It may also have something to do with getting them out of storage and ready to shuttle sports teams around as play starts to resume?

RangerNS

At 9 on a Saturday I wasn't considering the possibility of rotating in and out of the livery. Of course.

For a block of aircraft, they would want to keep individual aircraft as close to the fleets average age, in hours, as possible. Thus constrained, they can be through it as interchangeable widgets for all purposes. (*Jetz: nearly all the purposes). Any aircraft is close enough that it could go in to X year Y hours maintenance if a spot opens up (but they would use the oldest to keep the averages); any aircraft is close enough to swap in on a mechanical (but would choose the youngest, ceteris paribus)

Sports charters apparently are lucrative enough to take on the weirdness, but the weirdness is apparently sufficiently weird it requires a creative solution to get back to normal. It's possible that AC is loosing more money flying Jetz in the triangle, but for fleet management purposes, unbreaking the averages is worth it.

petz vs cattle and all that.

OttawaMark

And yet on my flights on LH/Austrian between Munich and Vienna there is time to serve a snack and beer to every passenger on similarly sized aircraft. It can be done if the airline wants to.

bigev007

Yeah, I was on an LH flight from Frankfurt to Stuttgart, and while the tarmac bus ride was longer than the flight, they served business class (half the A320neo) a full breakfast and coffee)tea in the air. Four attendants in a beautifully choreographed show around 1 cart.

​​​​​​Really was fascinating to watch, even if one of them set down the carafe so hard it splashed me. Lol

RatherBeInYOW

I've had Jetz on YOW/YYZ before where they sold it as Y and, surprise, you're on a Jetz aircraft that is doing a repositioning flight! It has been a few years since that has happened though.

Well, they manage to serve food in J anyway, pre-COVID times, along with drinks. And up until a couple of years ago AC still ran a regular drink cart in Y, pre-COVID it has been down to water bottle / foil topped OJ cup for quote a while now. When I was in Jetz on a Y ticket it was regular Y service. I honestly don't recall what they did with the PAX who had booked J. It does seem bizarre to sell these as PY though now, especially given current service levels.

YOW has been E190 service for the last couple of years, with A320s for the peak hours, and sometimes a CRA on the last flight ex-YYZ for the day. But it used to be mostly A320s. As for commuters, I'd love to see the numbers. There are a lot of people who indeed commute YOW/YYZ (I have friends who do this almost weekly in normal times) but there are a lot of people who do YOW-YYZ-X. I've actually left the terminal in YYZ maybe twice in the last couple of years, I am almost always headed somewhere else. And given the number of people who are gripping when the flights are delayed ex-YOW I know I am not alone. This is why people end up in J YOW/YYZ I suspect ... their business pays J on the YYZ - X leg, or for me I am eUpgrading the YYZ - X leg and adding in YOW-YYZ is "free".

Well, not really that much. It is worse during "rush hour" but generally you're usually talking about 10 SEs or less ... and while zone 2 always seems very busy (sometimes like half the plane) I would not say that priority boarding is the "vast vast majority" on most flights.


They most often just upguage an existing flight from YYZ to YOW to take the extra PAX back YOW to YYZ when they lose a flight to mechanical. Similar for WX, up to and including 767/787s when things get really bad.

rafi2k6

Took a flight down to YYZ this morning.
It was one of the Jetz aircraft.

I was the ONLY passenger onboard.

Literally, the only one.
You can see the FA's sitting down in the very last row.

Bohemian1

Did they make you wait for the Zone 4 boarding call?