Strong IFE and biz meal buy up make Air Canada 787 economy shine

At roughly five and a half hours, Air Canada’s transcontinental transborder flight from Newark to Vancouver is an interesting route. It’s as long in duration as the hop across the Atlantic Ocean from the Northeast to Ireland, and occasionally sees a Boeing 787 rotated in to replace the typical narrowbody aircraft. This provides an excellent opportunity to get a taste of the airline’s longhaul offering without straying too far from home.

Not only was this my first widebody flight experience with Air Canada, it was also my first time flying out of Newark’s new Terminal A. The new terminal shares a lot in common with LaGuardia’s Terminal B with the wide open pre-security spaces, high ceilings, and ample concession options.

Everything throughout the terminal airside, however, felt about 20% smaller than it should be. On this Thursday afternoon there were lines for restrooms, gate hold areas overflowed into the corridors, lounges were overcrowded, and it was hot everywhere.

Air Canada is likely the only airline to utilize a widebody aircraft at this terminal, and it uses two gates and jet bridges to board.

Despite the ample and fun digital signage and announcements in the gate area, the boarding process was still a bit of a slog but we buttoned up on time.

Economy class seats aboard Air Canada’s 787-9 feature 31 inches of pitch. On the leaner side of the human size spectrum, I personally did not feel cramped in my seat.

After settling in, I jumped straight into the Panasonic eX3 inflight entertainment system, which I found to be bursting with content that I actually wanted to watch!

Air Canada’s user interface allows passengers to favorite selections, which is particularly useful when the content catalog is this large. It’s an easy addition, yet many airlines don’t bother.

I was also excited to see that the system allows passengers to invite up to three other people to watch along with them. While I’ve seen this option a few times, I’ve never actually been flying with someone else when it was offered. This time, however, I attempted to make use of it only to find that it didn’t actually work.

While I was able to select another passenger’s seat to join, and they received a prompt, the playback wasn’t actually synchronized. Playback started at different times and pausing one screen didn’t pause the other. I’m not sure if this was the intended behavior, but I sure hope not.

At one point my monitor also completely locked while trying to enter picture-in-picture mode and because it was during the meal service it took the better part of an hour to get a flight attendant to reboot it. I really wish these systems allowed passengers to reboot them on their own.

Air Canada’s widebody fleet is equipped with Intelsat’s 2Ku connectivity platform, and the airline has a strange pricing plan deployed. Free messaging is available for Aeroplan and select Star Alliance program members, on top of a CA$18 “Stream Pass” and a CA$24 “Ultimate Pass.”

Both plans allow streaming video, with the latter offering “higher quality streaming.” No lower priced plan without streaming was available, which strikes me as a bit odd.

While most North American airlines have severely curbed their buy-on-board meal programs since Covid, Air Canada has not. The airline’s Bistro menu is varied and reasonably priced, with a neat trick that I’m surprised more airlines don’t use.

On the flight to Vancouver we ordered a chicken wrap and cheeseburger sliders. The chicken wrap was decent, but the burgers were inedible.

The burgers must have been warmed for too long as the cheese melted and fused to the plastic container.

The saving grace, however, was the option to buy up to a business class meal. I snagged the one remaining barbecue braised beef dish, no doubt a perk of being seated in just the third row of economy and being served early on.

Priced at just seven Canadian dollars above the Bistro items, I’d take this option every flight if possible. Only the main dish is served, so there’s no appetizer or dessert, but the beef was tasty and a decently sized portion.

While I purchased a voucher for Bistro items (which is of dubious value, as some meal items are priced lower than the voucher itself) before the Vancouver-bound flight, cabin crew members never returned to collect payment from passengers on either flight.

I’m not sure if that’s a fluke, but next time I’ll order a drink or two just in case it happens again.

Overall I found the Air Canada transborder experience to be quite positive. Having a full buy-on-board menu and robust entertainment selection helped pass the time, even if the Wi-Fi was a bit too expensive.

Note: Positive space tickets were provided by an employee of Air Canada at no cost, though as ever, all thoughts and opinions are solely of the author.