AC Jetz all-business class aircraft appearing on popular Sunspot routes
 

https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/air-canad...anes-1.5154601

TORONTO -- Air Canada is offering a rare opportunity for people to fly on their fleet of all-business class planes.

The airline said it will use their four Airbus 319 Jetz aircrafts, which are configured with only 58 business class seats and no economy, on popular routes this winter.

Air Canada normally uses these planes for professional sports teams, popular musical groups on tour and corporate clients on a charter basis.

Had these back in summer too between Toronto - Montreal & Ottawa.

Row 6 is emergency exit with extra legroom. Row 11 has backward facing seats. Table separates 11 & 12.

Flights loaded and available for revenue and redemption.

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...6793cc3dbf.gif
Old review from Ricky: https://princeoftravel.com/blog/revi...onto-montreal/

Additional point of reference for upcoming schedules: https://princeoftravel.com/blog/air-...or-the-winter/

How many of these 319s in the fleet?

AC website states 3 although CTV news article tcook052 posted states 4.

https://www.aircanada.com/ca/en/aco/...%20to%20travel.

Don't they have some flexability to convert between the two options on a seasonal basis based on the number of Hockey Teams they sign in a given season.

This does not sound good for a quick return of Rouge. If traditional low margin holiday destinations require and can support all business class aircraft it is unclear how a Rouge configuration would do.

I'm sure they would be able to although can't see them changing every season.

They seem to be replacing some mainline aircraft on the sun routes. I wonder if you are booked in Y on a mainline 320 if they will put you on the Jetz 319 replacement flight?

At least one of the older flights was still bookable as of this evening out of YVR.

Nice addition to the BGI route.
Personally not travelling yet, although BGI would be one of my preferred 1st up destinations to get to.

Looks like all routes are 1X/week.
https://www.routesonline.com/news/38...-2020jan-2021/

I am looking to go to PVR on Dec 28 and noticed that two flights were loaded on the AC website - one of them being the JETZ flight. Called AC and they confirmed that both flights are scheduled. Maybe the demand is there - but seems odd to me to be flying a 319 and a 320 at the same time to PVR.

I'm assuming the Jetz flight will catered as per business class seeing that's the only fare available?
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...4b417a951f.jpg

Interesting that YLW-YYZ is one of the routes. Maybe I'll have to make a little circuitous trip.

WS has been doing the same thing from YYC.
Makes it easy to consolidate flights if demand isn't there.

The question is.
Do you buy Y and hope that's the flight that get's cancelled?
Or pay for J on Jetz and become dissapointed when that flight gets cancelled?

I'd pay for a Intl Jetz J flight if it was to/from YYC. Until quarantine is relaxed at other airports Jetz J isn't going to sway my decision making. I'm also going to assume that it's Paid J (or P,Z,D,C) only for these flights and no eups.

I was thinking the same thing!

There's no Y for sale, so no way to buy an upgradeable fare.

It doesn't appear the quarantine changes are impacting AC's plans for YYC service (yet).

I can't imagine any reason at any positive price to fly to YYC in any class, even without the socially responsible self isolation on arrival and return.


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I was planning to travel Dec 28 from Vancouver to Puerto Vallarta on regular flight in economy, returning on Jan 4. Both flights have now been canceled by Air Canada and replaced with a new flight that is all business class (Jetz). I called Air Canada to see what they would do for me and they say my only options are to fly indirect through Toronto, turning my 5 hour direct flight into 20 hours with connections, or else fly a different day. I cannot fly a different day without missing my Christmas plans with my family or else missing my non-refundable hotel reservation in PV. The agent on the phone offered me the option to buy-up to business class for $650, but that was more than the price of my original ticket and why should I have to pay double now that they’ve made this change? There’s not even an option to get a refund, only a future travel credit. I think my New Years plans might be ruined now.

I'm seeing connections in YVR both ways on the days you want to travel.
$715 down and $731 back. Jetz to/from YVR

I'm pretty sure philelite meant that $650 was more than he paid for his round-trip Y ticket.

So $1446 round-trip isn't exactly a bargain.

"Hey we know you paid $400 for your trip departing at date/time X returning at date/time Y. We still have flights departing at X and returning at Y, but you're now going to have to travel on a different date for a non-stop, or connect through YYZ. Otherwise, you can pay us an ADCOL of more than your original fare if you want to fly on the dates/times you booked. And yes, those non-stop flights are still available at the same times, we're just require you to pay our post-purchase price increase. And because of COVID, if you say no, there's no refund."

Pretty awful behaviour from AC. If they had changed the original flight to Jetz and given everyone booked on it a free upgrade, then charged the new price to anyone wanting to book it going forward, no problem. But what they're doing to you is just dirty.

The aeroplan points (for Dec 28) have also increased significantly since they cancelled the 319 with economy seating. I booked two seats on the Jetz flight on November 9 for 23,900 each (from yxe). Today they want 51,000 points per ticket but the cash price of the ticket has not changed significantly.

Easy come, easy go. Tried to book one of these new flights. Already cancelled and removed from the schedule.

They added YYC PHX apparently (not showing on EF) as well as YYC YVR (noticed this while looking for flights on UA award search), removing a bunch of others. The map and description show one thing, but the schedule is completely different. https://www.aircanada.com/ca/en/aco/...nada-jetz.html

My booked flight YVR PVR (very likely going to be cancelled by me if not AC) has 0 seats selected in C. While that's not a great indicator, it's pretty telling. I mean, who in their right mind expected YVR PVR to be a market that would fill up a full A319 in C-only config?!

Time for another party plane thread?

Hmm, maybe I'll have a chance to fly one after all...

You spend too much time in Europe; it's J-only. Besides, if it were C-only, it would just be a bunch of crappy blocked middle seats ;):p

FWIW, it's possible to see one or two days in advance on which routes these aircraft are being subbed in:
https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/c-gbhn
https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/c-gbia

We are booked for yyz-cun on the 20th on the Jetz319

So, the first flights have been operated successfully. I had my doubts they would ever actually operate.

Interestingly, C-GBIA is scheduled for a YEG-YVR tomorrow, and as usual they are selling Y-only (very empty still). OTOH C-GBHN is scheduled for YUL-YYZ AC405 on Wednesday and it's being sold as J-only... That's pretty unusual.

Edit to add: C-GBIK has been returned to service. https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/c-gbik

Colour me surprised, but perusing seat maps on upcoming flights, these flights seem to be much more popular than I expected. I guess there's pent-up demand? Maybe vacation packages? Not sure really, but it's crazy to see four YUL-FLL flights on one day, with one operated by 333 (arguably better, though not as exotic, J-class experience), and still see 46 out of 58 seats selected on the Jetz flight!

Keep in mind that beyond the few that redeemed miles at bargain/fixed prices, people paid business-class prices or lots of miles for these flights. I'm not talking load on a DH4 here... Obviously the returns (especially the early ones, the first rotations to PVR/BGI/CUN) are very empty, but the outbounds in some cases are nearly full. Selling 46 business class seats on one flight is rather impressive!

Here's some stats (yes, only based on seat map), out of total capacity of 58 seats, return occupancy in brackets:
YUL BGI Dec 16: 28 [0]
YUL FLL Dec 18: 46 [1]
YYZ PBI Dec 18: 34 [0]
YVR PVR Dec 18: 18 [0]
YVR YYC Dec 18: 12
YYC YVR Dec 19: 2
YUL FLL Dec 19: 37 [1]
YYC PHX Dec 19: 13 [0]
YYZ YLW Dec 19: 20 [1]
YUL FLL Dec 20: 33 [2]
YYZ CUN Dec 20: 24 [2] (nb: the other CUN YYZ AC flight is J1...)
YUL FLL Dec 21: 18 [2]
YYZ BGI Dec 21: 7 [0]
YVR PVR Dec 21: 7 [0]
...and so on.

It's been happening since the summer.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/willhor...st-coronavirus

C-GBIA is the only mainline AC 319 I've never flown on, and I've never been on a Jetz plane, so I'm kind of tempted to book a quick turn if it comes through YYC on a domestic flight at some point in the near future. So maybe I need to book placeholder flights on those YVR runs just in case...

A few things:
- that was a limited-time operation in June
- it was sold as PY, not J
- last-minute substitutions on other routes (as I mentioned, YOW-YYZ, YUL-YYZ, YEG-YVR, etc.) are generally sold as Y-only

flew C-GBHN in June was cool but they said they will fly them for march break also so planning on booking on 1 or 2 then.

Funny, you made me look into my records and verify that indeed I haven't flown C-GBIA, either. C-GBHN I logged on a YYZ-YYC in 2013, and C-GBIK I've flown twice (YYZ-YOW in 2011, YYC-YVR in 2015).

Wow, the flyer geek is strong in this thread. I never even knew logging airplanes flown was a thing..... lol

Some people can even remember seat numbers from way back and without a spreadsheet. I'm lucky if I can remember where I am flying to sometimes.

But these Jetz flights would really confuse me with their single class of seats.

The YYZ-CUN Jetz this Sunday is now 11k booking into X not I. Cancelled and rebooked my flights and saved 17,300 points. But lost my 70lbs bags to 50lbs.

Edit- it’s now 16k and the seat map is a regular 319.....?

2nd edit got a itinerary change to the proper seat map. Odd. And back up to 43k and J bucket (I assume)

So did you manage to rebook for 11K in the end? :)

App in the Air is what i use to track and then check FR24 after the flight to confirm since sometimes it doesn't get added automatically. sadly doesn't give a list of reg/aircraft type i have to manually go and look for a particular flight