Adam Smith

This thread is to report on and discuss in-flight food and beverage for all Air Canada flights in Business Class (including Premium Long-Haul, Signature Service, and rouge) within North America. From a meal perspective, “North America” includes “Sun” destinations such as Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean.

Post your menus, photos, questions, and opinions in this thread. To the extent updates are needed to these initial posts, please advise @Adam Smith via PM. If you post a menu and/or photos, please add a listing to the wiki in the format detailed in the wiki. PLEASE MAKE SOME SUGGESTIONS ON AN APPROPRIATE FORMAT

In order to keep information relevant it is expected that this thread (and its companions on other locations/classes of service) will be periodically refreshed – for example, at the end of 2021, this thread may be closed, and a new thread on the same topic (with the same information from the first few posts) may be created.

COVID NOTE: For most of the pandemic, AC has been offering significantly reduced meal service. As the world starts to normalize, AC is also normalizing its meal service. The posts below largely describe the normal, pre-COVID world, to which we are slowly returning. However, for the time being, there may be inconsistencies. Please feel free to discuss these inconsistencies and current service levels here.

Overview of AC North America J meal service
AC offers several different types of food and beverage service on its intra-North America flights:

• Premium Long-Haul (“PLH”) service is offered on select routes deemed premium by AC (YVR/YYC/YEG-YYZ/YUL/YOW, YVR/YYC-EWR, YYZ/YUL-SFO/LAX)
• Signature Service is offered on widebody aircraft on PLH routes
• A basic service is offered on all other routes

Breakfast is served on flights departing before 10AM, as well as red-eyes. Lunch/dinner is served on all other departures.

Full meals are served on flights above 2 hours block time. On shorter flights, a snack is served rather than a full meal.

Meal selections change frequently, typically every month, although many items have been in the rotation for years and reappear over and over again.

The different levels of service are detailed in the following posts:

• Basic North America J meal service
• PLH service
• Signature service
• Meal service on shorter flights
• Snack basket
• Beverages

Adam Smith

Packaged almonds are offered during the pre-meal beverage service.

Full meals consist of a tray with:

• A piece of bread
• Salad
• Entrée
• A small dessert

All items are served together on the tray (except for PLH and Signature service, described below).

For breakfast, the choices are typically between (a) a fruit plate with oatmeal and (b) [WHAT ELSE DO THEY OFFER ON NON-PLH ROUTES OTHER THAN THE FRUIT PLATE?]

For lunch/dinner, the choice will be between (a) a meat dish (usually chicken or beef) and (b) a vegetarian dish (often pasta).

A full selection of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages is available.

Adam Smith

Premium Long-Haul ("PLH") service is offered on select routes deemed premium by AC, including: YVR/YYC/YEG-YYZ/YUL/YOW, YVR/YYC-EWR, YYZ/YUL-SFO/LAX.

PLH differs from the basic service mainly in offering more choice and slightly more upscale presentation.

Warm nuts (mostly almonds with a few cashews) are served during the pre-meal beverage service.

For breakfast, PLH offers three entrée choices:

• Pancakes with chicken sausage
• Omelette
• Fruit plate with oatmeal

For lunch/dinner, PLH offers four entrée choices:

• Beef or lamb
• Chicken
• Fish
• Vegetarian, often pasta

Dessert consists of either:

• Warm cookies and vanilla ice cream
• Bowl of fruit

Unlike basic meal service, when the tray is brought to the passenger, it will not have the entrée. The passenger will be given a few minutes to eat their salad and bread before the hot entrée is brought out. Trays are cleared after the entrée is finished and dessert is served on its own a short time after that.

PLH service is otherwise the same as basic service.

Adam Smith

Signature service is offered on widebody aircraft on PLH routes (see previous post for routes).

In general, Signature service is somewhere between PLH service and international J service.

The same meal choices on Signature flights are generally the same as on PLH flights, with the addition of (i) an appetizer, usually fish-based, and (ii) a cheese course and port between the meal and dessert.

Adam Smith

On flights shorter than 2 hours, a small tray with a snack will be served. There are no choices.

Typical offerings at breakfast include omelettes and fruit plates. Later in the day, cheese and crackers, chicken wraps, or salami and cheese are common offerings.

Adam Smith

On most flights (both short and long), a snack basket will be offered sometime after the meal has been served (on TCONs, it may be offered multiple times).

The snack basket typically consists of:

• Lindt 70% dark chocolate bars
• Miss Vickie’s Original flavour chips
• Kit Kat chocolate bars

At times, the snack basket items will not be available for one reason or another, and a snack basket may be assembled from other items, usually from the Y BoB offering, such as Pringles, Hershey’s Mix, etc.

Ill-informed or misleading Service Directors may say that the snack basket offering has been updated and this is the new standard going forward, but true changes to the snack basket offering are incredibly rare. The Lindt 70% and Miss Vickie’s chips have been consistently present since the snack baskets were first introduced nearly a decade ago, and the most major change was to swap out Lindt milk chocolate bars for the Kit Kats several years ago.

Adam Smith

Non-alcoholic

• Water
• Coffee
• Tea
• Fruit juices (orange, apple, cranberry)
• Tomato juices (regular or extra spicy Clamato)
• Soft drinks (Coke, Coke Zero, Diet Coke, Sprite, Canada Dry ginger ale, tonic water, club soda)

Alcoholic

• Vodka (Smirnoff)
• Scotch (Johnnie Walker Black)
• Canadian whisky (Canadian Club)
• White rum (Bacardi)
• Gin (Tanqueray)
• Cognac (Courvoisier)
• Bailey's
• Molson Canadian
• Heineken
• Rotating red wine selection(s)
• Rotating white wine selection(s)

bcard519

Anyone know when they are upgrading service again in Business?
I don't like to drink wine and not a fan of molson canadian.
Can you actually get a crown royal again?

Thanks

canadiancow

In the past week, two SDs have given me different July dates.

yyznomad

July 32nd and 33rd?

canadiancow

I think one said the 7th, and the other said "later this month".

yyznomad

So, July 32nd.

looking forward to tomorrow or the 32nd.

now only if AC can serve the Y Scotch in J.

who am I kidding. Hardy har har.

Vaclav

I hope that it will be on July 7th at AC - business and premium.

Westjet started to return to pre-pandemic full service in all cabins today. They also did press release.

It is good to have competition, I hope that AC will improve the meals/drinks as well.

etkuo

I sampled some menus on the AC app for July 9th (the further it would go on the app right now) and they still show the same menus.

Granted, the menus on the app haven't been 100% accurate.

Vaclav

I 've got used to the AC app and the experience has been quite good so far. Never had any issues, always found what I needed or what I was looking for. AC's app seems to be more user-friendly than that of Westjet.

On the other hand, the menus are a weak point and should be more accurate.

Westjet updated their app today.