Syd Experience
 

Recently returned from Syd on AC34 in March in J. My overall experience was excellent. Service was outstanding, aircraft was clean and no IFE or seat issues: this was a big change from my flight down to Syd a week earlier. I wish I had got the FIN number of the AC34 77L because I think it was brand new. I didn't see one mechanical issue, albeit there was a little squeak in the overhead every time we hit chop, but the crew apologized for that. The in-charge went around J and shook everyone’s hand when we boarded and when we were about to land and I was always addressed by may last name
Alas the cheese tray appears as well...however, no baked cookies or Hagen Daz ice cream.
It was also nice to see AC rotate the movies on the return trip. Perhaps that was just my luck, but about 1/2 the movies were different on the way home.

As i remembered from last year, the ANZ lounge in Syd was really nice. Polite staff and food and drinks were better than MLL (smoke salmon, bandwidths, pastries, etc)
(And was a nice treat as I was exposed to RCC service later in the day at ORD:( )
I thought the window 11A/K and 6A/K are the best seats in J. You get a little bit more storage and very quite seats with the wall. 11 is a bit more quite than 6 because you are furthest from the Galley. However, in 11A/K you don’t get a window, however there is not much to see at night over the pacific, or flying into YVR in the rain. 6A/K had a slightly better window view.
Transfer in YVR sucks, I had a 2 hr window and barely made my flight. I waited 55 min for my luggage to appear on belt 4 in the US transfer area. I really don’t understand why it takes anything over 30 min to deliver luggage, especially bags with *G priority tags.
Anyhow, that’s my two cents, the new XM is very nice. I can’t image much better in the market for a J seat.

Thank you for the trip report, did you take AC33 into Syd from YVR, if so...how long did it take you to clear customs and get your bags?

I did this about 2 weeks ago, bags took around 15 mins, customs for me was fast (Australian Resident) as we got exited out the side door and missed the HUGE queue.

If you had to go through the normal customs line at this time of the day it would take well over 60 mins! :td:

J class passengers got an "e-express" card (in flight) for the faster line after picking up the luggage.

I just flew back SYD-YVR-YYZ-LGA (departing SYD March 9th) and I'm happy to say that after my disappointing trip down the return flights were much better. The food was way better, the crew was efficient and friendly, the snack bar area was well stocked and clean. With those comfy seats and a sleeping pill it really is amazing how fast that 14 hour flight can fly by.

Echoing sram's experience, however, the one disappointing aspect was baggage processing times. At YVR, despite moving fast and there being no queues for immigration, it took about 75 minutes from arriving at the gate to being airside again for the domestic portion of the flight. The vast majority of this time was spent waiting for bags. At YYZ for some reason we arrived 36 minutes late despite leaving only 8 minutes late (and there didn't seem to be air traffic delays, so I'm a bit mystified by that - did we fly particularly slowly or something?), so that cut our already tightish 90 minute connection down to about 55 minutes... so the fact that the bags took 40 minutes to get to the transborder conveyor belt was a cause of serious stress, since our LGA flight was the last flight of the night to any NYC airport. Anyway, we made it, stressed and puffing - arriving at the gate basically right at the moment that the aircraft should have been pushing back... only to discover that the pilot and co-pilot in the security queue behind us were in fact for our flight, and we ended up leaving over an hour late after various stuff ups on the ground. And our bags made it too - but given the 1 hour delay, so they should have.

I know our schedule was reasonably tight, but those were very slow baggage processing times, especially given that these were at not particularly busy times for either airport... a point I'll bear in mind when booking AC flights in future (particularly because I'll always be having to do the baggage reclaim / US preclearance / baggage recheck shuffle at YYZ).

The e-express card was given in Syd for J passengers leaving Syd and who were required to processes Australian immigration on departure. It took me about 10 minutes from the time I dropped of my bags at the check in counter, to the time I was entering the ANZ lounge. The 1:30 departure for AC34 is a good time as there are few Int'l flights leaving at that time (except a few Singapore flights and Quantas flights), so the terminal is fairly quiet.

YVR is an entirely different story. AC34 parked at 8:40, bags showed up at 9:30. The useless AC baggage attendant was busy putting on lipstick and makeup in the corner and when approached by passengers, told everyone it can take up to 30 minutes for the luggage to arrive (passengers had waited 40 min). US immigration and customs is a breeze. Had just enough time to run into the MLL grab some toast and run to the UAL gate. Makes you wonder what the Priority tags are for.
Should have taken a shower in the MLL in YVR as the RCC in ORD didn’t have showers and I did not qualify for the international lounge even though I had a same day Int’l J ticket, *G and it was a UAL Code Share.

Thanks for the update!
I'll shortly be able to add my own, but hope its as favourable as yours. The wombat family are on AC33 on Friday so will be looking forward to a decent night sleep rather than the 2 am wake up for Hawaii. We've had the XM experience on a 767 from CDG last year, but I'm almost as excited as the little wombats to see new metal.

My original post meant for passengers arriving SYD. Yes, for departing J class passengers, you also get an "e-express" card for faster processing through immigration.

"e-express" also available at MEL. But I did a UA MEL-SYD "domestic" and there was no passenger at the "domestic" immigration counter.

Interesting, i've never got a e-express card when arriving in Syd on my various arrivals there. When/where did you get one?

I have been saying for a while on FT.... WARNING WARNING AVOID YVR whenever possible.....:mad:

Both Dec and Jan trip. J class. The FA hand them out in flight.