Intro
The final portion of this great adventure would see me flying from Montreal to Los Angeles onboard an Air Canada A330 in “Signature Class”. You know, looking back at the past three weeks, I say this humbly, I have not only been proud of what I have accomplished in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but grateful for all of the people I crossed paths with. Truly another eye-opening trip, and one that will change my perception of life forever. Thank you for following along, and let’s wrap it up with this final Review.
How was Air Canada on their A330 in Business? While it’s always nice to have a lie-flat seat on a transcontinental flight, I found the seat to be a lot smaller than the 787-9 I was previously on. Other than that, a pretty good flight overall!ere…
Routing
Enchainement de vols
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- 13AC781- Business- Montreal- Los Angeles- Airbus A330-300
How I Booked
Flights from certain parts of Africa to the United States are priced very fairly in premium cabins. Looking online, I managed to find a fare from Addis Ababa to Los Angeles for 2300 one-way, or round-trip for 2900. Considering PQP is distance-based on non UA carriers, this would net me close to 4600 PQP for 2900, while having the opportunity to try out Ethiopian Airlines A350-1000 (on hopefully both legs).
In my opinion, not bad at all! Good luck trying to find saver mileage space on this route on a lie-flat A330. It's a unicorn from my experience.
Maple Leaf Lounge
Upon arriving from London on the 787-9, I had a couple of hours to kill in the Maple Leaf Lounge in the transborder area. I won’t be reviewing it yet, but out of all the Maple Leaf Lounges I have been to, this is one of the worst in the network (sorry). It gets really busy, feels dated, and there are no showers.
But I met some cool people and we laughed for a long time together. Considering my layover was over 4 hours, we didn't stop talking the whole time. A very fond airport memory.
Some food and drink as well…
Boarding
Heading over to the gate, I found boarding just beginning right on time at 4:35 pm. Thankfully, it seems that a lot of group 1 was holding back, so within minutes, we were getting on this beautiful A330 flying us over to Los Angeles.
For those interested, Air Canada occasionally operates widebodies from Toronto and Montreal to Los Angeles. However, these are only on select days and select frequencies, while often being priced much higher.
The Seat/Cabin
Boarding through door 2L, I turned left to see this beautiful A330 business class cabin located between doors 1 and 2.
Totaling 32 seats, across 8 rows, seats are laid out in a 1-2-1 configuration, providing direct aisle access for all customers, and plenty of space to stretch out during the flight.
On paper, this seat is mightily similar to what you will find on the 787 and 777, but with one caveat: it is much narrower. Unlike the 787, the storage to the side of the seat was visibly smaller, and the footwell was also smaller, and that’s saying something since one of my only complaints on the 787 was that the footwell was small…
More…
The footwell reminded me of the AA Business Class on their A321T. Other than that, the design remained the same with a light, storage compartment for small devices, and even a second storage compartment for headphones.
Additionally, it was interesting to see that the touchscreen to control your seat operated slightly differently and seemed more modern.
Departure
By 5:00, boarding was wrapped up, and the captain came on to announce our flight time of 5 hours and 20 minutes over to Los Angeles this evening. He mentioned that the weather wasn’t great departing Montreal (like 9 months of the year (I can say that because I am Canadian lol)), but once at altitude, he expected a smooth flight.
Much like with every North American flight I have taken on Air Canada, no pre-departure beverages were offered. Dropping the ball here, as the US3 all do it on these longer routes.
By 5:15, we pushed back next to an Austrian 767 and were wheels up from runway 6R 15 minutes later. The one good aspect about Montreal is that it is a smaller airport than Toronto, meaning the taxi times often don’t take as long. YYZ can be a hot mess at times, just like ORD.
Amenities/Bedding
All of the classic signature class bedding was on offer today, consisting of the traditional duvet (comfortable enough), a mattress pad, and a plush pillow (still waiting on my cuddle pillow AC 😅).
In terms of other amenities, no amenity kits were offered on this flight, but the signature flagship headphones were given to passengers, which is a nice touch.
IFE+WIFI
Cruising up past 10,000 feet, and hearing the ding go off, I figured I’d check out the IFE to see if anything changes on the A330. The answer was nope, the options were exactly the same as the entertainment on the previous flight, and the screen was just as high definition as before. Good stuff, AC, for fleet consistency.
If you are looking to connect to wifi, the prices are 10 CAD for one hour and 28 CAD for the whole flight. Not bad, but not great either…
Meal Service
Waiting upon my menu during boarding was the infamous “signature class” menu, featuring a multitude of options on today's flight. I have to say, this is probably the best menu I have come across on a transcontinental flight, including a starter, 4 options for a main course, and 3 options for dessert.
Additionally, you can also pre-order your meal on this flight.
Roughly 40 minutes after takeoff, the cabin crew came around with the drink cart offering us a choice of beverages. I opted for the Austrian red, which wasn’t bad, in addition to a delicious sparkling water (well, as delicious as it could be).
Another 30 minutes after that, the meal service came out and was distributed on one tray. As per usual, the gnocchi was delicious, and I HIGHLY recommend this dish when flying Air Canada.
Service
Usually, I tend to write exact examples displaying service, but this was the last of the four flights, and I was absolutely shattered.
However, the overall observation that I got from the cabin crew was that they were fine in general, but not great like the last flight. No welcome onboard, minus at the door (hey, at least we got that, unlike ET), and nothing overly personalized. A solid 7.5/10.
Arrival Into LAX
Managing about 3.5 hours of decent sleep, I woke up as we were 20 minutes from landing, and somehow fell back asleep when we were 10 minutes outside of Los Angeles.
We touched down ahead of schedule, arrived at our gate in Terminal 6, 9 (ha, get it 😉, yes, I sometimes have the maturity age of a 5-year-old) minutes early, and it was off to head back to Southern California after a splendid trip around the world!
I'll be back to more routine posting now, just finished up a trip to Syria (so amazing, can't wait to share that series) and the wifi there didn't work very well most of the time ha.
