While AC is a long way from Singapore or Ethiad its still head and shoulders above anything else in North America in terms of service, schedule and aircraft.

Now lets get to the actual flight. One thing people have to understand is that each single flight attendant on a flight has a task (or tasks) to perform. Some flight attendant are responsbale for boarding, some are responsable for announcements, others for preparing the galleys and the trolleys on the ground for the inflight service. Basically, the flight attendant in charge of the boarding wouldnt know what the meal choice is. To answer your question about the meal choice, she would have to complete her duty and tasks first (which would be to secure the cabin for in on-time departure), remember your seat, go to the back and ask to the flight attendant in charge of the galley (if time permits, which usually dont).

As for the entertainment individual screens, i am happy to inform you that the entire Air Canada fleet is equipped with INDIVIDUAL screens now a days. Except for 3 aircrafts! Air Canada ordered new Boeings 787 that were supposed to be delivered about 4 years ago. The aircrafts that are not equiped with the new entertainment screens are the aircrafts that were supposed to be replaced when Air Canada purchased those 787.

One other thing that deserves to be said, in my opinion, is safety on board. Air Canada, is by far one of the safest and even perhaps the safest airline out there. Some airlines really have a poor safety record, lets just point out Air France who lost 3 wide-body aircrafts in the last 11 years (flight 4590, 358 and 447). Having a tasteful meal is not really going to help you while you drop 35 000 ft to your death. You can always have a delicious meal once you get SAFELY to your destination!

I found your blog randomly while surfing on the net. I think its a great one. Its nice to see people actually enjoying their life and doing what they feel makes them happy. Wish you the best for your future travel plans wherever they may take you.

That being said, Air Canada has been notorious for poor service, overbookings, poor communication during delays (ie. 8 hour waits, no water/bathroom breaks/etc. on a runway, with no explanation to passengers) in recent years and especially around the holiday times. WestJet, however, has for the most part received stellar reports in terms of customer satisfaction in that same time; when they did screw up, or there were uncontrollable delays, they were sure to communicate what exactly was going on to the travelers affected.

We have flown Virgin on other routes, by the way. The bar area was way cool – for the 2 seconds we got to see it as we walked by on our way to “cattle class”. Otherwise, my back-of-the seat monitor was broken and Ian’s wouldn’t play any games… Hopefully you’ll have better luck!

I have always flown with Air Canada, I don’t like the hassle of transiting in the US.

Last September, I flew from Montreal to Tokyo (transit via Toronto) and back. The 4 planes we took all had the new personal state of the art entertainment system. The Toronto-Tokyo plane was a Boeing 777. One of those new ones with the pod like seats in first class. (http://www.aircanada.com/shared/en/common/fleet/pop_fleet77W.html). When you book your tickets online, you always get the plane configuration and info, it will tell you if you have personal screen are not.

For Europe, Air Transat is usually a bit cheaper than Air Canada if you depart from Montreal.