IAH-OIL-TRASH

My vote: AC

I'd like to fly AC more often as they are our North American partner, but dang -

1) Almost like extracting teeth to get refunds for flights they cancelled during Covid
2) Call wait time were hours during Covid, and still pretty crummy before and now.
3) Now, they calling flight cancellations due to staff shortages "safety issues" to avoid paying compensation: Air Canada is refusing to compensate passengers for cancellations thanks to a policy that lets them call staff shortages a safety problem (yahoo.com)

MatthewLAX

My vote would be for TAP Portugal. I find TP customer service even worse and downright unreasonable when it comes to changes/refunds.

dinoscool3

TAP. They owe me EU 261 that they will never pay.

hirohito888

From an overall assessment from operations to customer service to airport/cabin experience, I would tend to agree. It took over 18 months for me to get my refund from AC during COVID for an unflown trip. And 5-6 months to get refund for a half-flown trip. And none of them originated or terminated in Canada.

My other issue is, despite how they market themselves, they're not really that outstanding vs. other US/EU competitors. Sure there are some good things and bad things, but nothing that's above average or makes me want to specifically connect in YYZ/YUL.

But that's my assessment of flying 33 out of 46 or so UA partners. And a vast majority of them were pre-pandemic.

IAH-OIL-TRASH

Looks like a tie between TAP and AC

JimInOhio

I’ve never flown TAP but have several times on AC. They are on my own avoid list.

Ghoulish

ANA

They'll ruin you for other carriers by providing an outstanding product delivered in a highly customer centric manner.

Artuero

Definitely TAP. Though their flights are very nice, when they happen.

DutchessPDX

There are companies that will pursue them for you for a cut of the take. 100% contingency based too. If you've given up a share of something is better than nothing.

emcampbe

Former YYZ resident here…imagine living in Canada and basically having no choice to fly AC (Flair isn’t an option in my book, just like I won’t fly Frontier or Spirit here).

also, to be fair, the call center wait times per-dates COVID by about 15-20 years (give or take…). Yeah, it’s definitely worse now, but 1+ hour hold time during the day (even on days without IRROPS) hasn’t been an oddity for many, many years. At one point, they vowed to do something about it, but whatever they did only made things worse. I’ve found my way around this (PM me if you want more info).

i just flew them to NRT (on the way to SIN), and onboard (once the planes actually left - both late), I found it very average, which at least was average. Speaking of OTP, they are absolutely worst in class, and have traditionally had pretty bad OTP - gotten worse now for sure.

on the other hand, they do operate their own aircraft flying SFO-YYZ, which is more than I can say for UA right now.

IAH-OIL-TRASH

One good option at Xmas time HNL to LHR was on AC HNL-Toronto-LHR w/ free overnight hotel in Toronto and Signature Lounge access. HNL-YYZ's been on hiatus through Covid, but even if it comes back, I'm not sure I'd entertain flying 'em again unless the price differential was awesome. Their performance in all areas during Covid really soured me on them.

uastarflyer

I recently flew UA SFO-NRT NH NRT-SIN in Premium Economy and couldn’t disagree more with this take. I missed UA 803 (sometimes UA 881) on UA metal big time.

But NH >>>>> AI (Except for Indian food on board)

bmwe92fan

I'm assuming you were on the Air Japan flight -- that's not real ANA -- its like flying UEX vs UA - except the planes are cleaner.... Air Japan is NH's version of the "JV" team -- limited services, less experienced FA, and older planes -- but still better than most....

dcpdxtrans

Maybe 6-8y ago to South America. I requested a special vege and got one of the best plates I've ever had--Indian. I tried again multiple times out of the same city and never got that plate again.

dcpdxtrans

To answer OP: though not a partner but since no *A in Brasil right now, it is a tie b/w Gol and Azul. Why Gol? bc recently, it was near impossible to get a G3 agent on the phone. Why Azul: Since AD owes me money and won't return it. What is the name of the entity/site that goes after deadbeat foreign airlines? I'm happy to give a huge cut...