SeamasterLux

Good morning everyone,

I'm currently booking my summer holidays and plan to travel in July to Canada.

Curiously, 6 companies have a similar pricing to YUL in business class, which gives me a hard time choosing. I'll be travelling with my dad and your piece of advice is greatly needed.

AF: I get miles but AFAIK, we'll be flying old 747-400
AC: Seats look ok but I've heard terrible things about this airline..
KLM: sucks historically and we're supposed to fly on the MD-11 which looks awful
LX: looks good but the seat has negative feedbacks (narrow and quite uncomfy)
LH: don't really know
BA: the best choice of all apparently but 6 hours of waiting time in LHR both for the 1st flight and the return as well.

Please help!
I do have FB Plat but I don't see how's that gonna change anything. I don't really care about the miles on that route.

AF and KLM are also the shortest flights.

KLflyerRalph

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/klm-f...nightmare.html

Gajan

An MD-11 trip report from AMS to YUL.

SeamasterLux

So if I get both your comments right, KLM offers an amazing experience on this segment?

I'm a bit stunned

orbitmic

AC and LX have by far the best seats of the six you mention. I would then put BA and then AF, KL, and LH. Soft-product wise, I would say that LX and AFwould be a bit better than the other four as long as you precisely avoid the 744 on AF (but I actually like the AF 744 in J for other reasons, the first cabin is remarkably private. AF flies multiple times a day to YUL so there are several planes you could be in. We don't know where you will be starting from so is one of those options nonstop?

bankops

Out if LUX, I try to avoid the 6am flights when going to North America and I have bad experiences with the MD-11 to YUL. Chances of a mechanical are too high for my liking.

My preference on this (in J) would be:
1110 LG to CDG and then the 1340 AF/A340 to YUL
1635 LG to CDG and then the 1910 AF/777 to YUL

Both of those have a 1:35 connection time, so no lounge. If you want to spend some time in Paris, just take the early CDG flight and the later connection. Price will not change this far out.

Going on LH is fine too, but I don't like the very short or very long connection in Frankfurt.

MichielR

LX and/or AC top of the list. LH good for the outbound but only if you know FRA, otherwise try MUC. KL to try the M11 and AF only if you know CDG. BA is a good seat but the shortest flight, with LHR which is not great if you have to connect between terminals (LUX IIRC is T1 now). BA service is more hit and miss than AF or KL.

LX have the best service, AC the best seat for the over night return. Try to prolong your flight by going as far east so you get a bit more sleep. This rules out BA.

Or mix by combining LX or LH with AC. For Skyteam, try the KL M11, one of the better options albeit not a full flat seat.

My ranking would be full flat ahead of the rest, so
LX - AC - BA - LH - KL - AF

SeamasterLux

LX has one of the best seats? I thought it was hard like a rock and very narrow (spent the morning on seatguru, seatexpert and skytrax)...

I'm departing from LUX and there are plenty of options.

Thanks to all of you comments, I've already ruled out BA.

I'll actually do LUX-xxx-YUL and then NYC-xxx-LUX with an open jaw ticket so that opens more options for the type of aircrafts to fly on.

orbitmic

LX definitely has one of the best seats, unless you particularly enjoy the sloppy slope seats of AF, KL, or LH over the fully flat seats of LX, AC, and BA, and LX configuration is much nicer than BA (but less good than AC which I would consider the best seat of the lot, but with soft product less good than LX).

kphilipsen

I split my time between LUX and BOS and fly across the Atlantic every other week.

I've flown to YUL quite a few times over the last few months, here are my thoughts:
* LUX -> ZRH -> YUL - I'm actually quite happy with Swiss. They fly the A330 on the route and has a decent business class layout with flatbeds. Depending on how tall you are it may be a bit tight but I feel they've got a good overall product. The food on Swiss is also pretty decent as is the entertainment selection.
* LUX -> CDG -> YUL - The first leg to Paris is the usual Luxair (Embraer or Bombardier) followed by Air France with the A380 on this route. While I do like the A380, there are a lot of seats in C so I've found the business class service on an A380 equip to be less personalized than on a 777 or 330 for example. The seats are the usual AF business class seats which are more lie-flat then flat beds.

Another option which I've tried recently is Air Canada out of Brussels (I'm not sure if it's too much of a burden to drive up to BRU), but I find it quite easy because I can fly direct from BRU to YUL (You could actually do the same from FRA). Out of all carriers I've flown to YUL, I do find the ExecutiveFirst seats (this is business class really) on AC to be quite comfortable. Since they are angled and have easy access into the aisle they don't feel like you're too tight in the seat. The onboard entertainment/IFE is pretty decent but I have to admit I'm not a fan of Air Canada's food...

Goldorak

The 744 should not constitute a no go IMO. As Orbitmic said, the J front cabin is very pleasant to fly in. And AF 744 J cabin have all been retrofitted now. OK it is NEV4, but at least it's not anymore the old NEV seats.
Another thing to maybe consider : in case of misconnection, you will be easily rebooked on AF via CDG, as they fly to YUL 3 or 4 times daily during the summer, as opposed to LH, LX, KL, BA who all fly to YUL only once daily from their hubs (I think).

SeamasterLux

Thanks for the explanation.

LX comes first or close to first then.

But kphilipsen and Goldorak have a point with the multiple flights per day to YUL with AF.

The war is open between LX and AF. I might use the miles collected with LX to renew my *G with TK and I don't really need miles on AF anyway.

So basically, it's best seat vs. safest solution.

I'm wondering if I can get a FRA-YUL with AC and then fly back from NY with Swiss. It'd be an interesting mix.

bankops

Just a note. The A380 will no longer be on the CDG-YUL run by the time you go.

SeamasterLux

Only 777 and A744 from what I've seen. Problem is that the 777 is totally unconvenient since it means I would have a 5-hour stop over in CDG vs. 2 hours if I was taking the flight with the A744

Goldorak

A744 ??? And twice in the same thread !
Be careful, you are in a dangerous situation