I’ll avoid Frontier at all costs. Hard to do some times as I think Denver is their hub.
Got on a plane to DFW. Seats had maybe, maybe 1/2 inch of cushion. Worst flight in my life. It was a red-eye, so lights off, and any ‘service’ was non existent.
I KNOW this is what the airlines want you to do, but I will only fly first class now, If they have it.
Not only do I get enough leg room for myself, I get a bit of food. My vacation starts NOW. Not when we land.
I’ve flown first class 4-5 times, VERY surprisingly, the food was good.
Both good points. I was in Edmonton on business a couple of weeks ago, and was pleasantly surprised to find Porter check-in desks. So it looks like they’re expanding into western Canada. Good news. Better news would be if they expanded to the smaller centres that Air Canada has abandoned, but all in good time, I suppose.
My experiences with Air Canada have been mostly positive. When I’ve had problems they were pretty good at providing vouchers and solutions. On board food has been reasonable but not all items are available on shorter flights. I’ve had worse experiences and service with some other companies.
I’ve had good and bad experiences with Air Canada, but I’ve had awful experiences with Pearson airport with many airlines. Sadly they are often the common denominator and not all staff involved in supporting a flight is an airline employee. Pearson is just the worst.
Mechanical/electrical delays are annoying, but things happen outside of scheduled maintenance events and I’m pretty patient with that stuff (heavily related to my job, so I know what it all entails…lots of paperwork, but for good reason!)
Delta was by far the worst trip and service I ever had, many years ago (haven’t flown them since). The most awkward is the United/Air Canada code-sharing system that assigned me and someone else the same seat. Fortunately, another seat was available on the plane, but it was rather odd to check and double check tickets and row labels to realize that we actually were booked on the same seat! Sharing was not an option.
And aside from the people involved, it’s just physically an awful building. Every connection I’ve ever made involved far too much walking ridiculous distances, with little guidance to tell you how far you have to go. Walk one long corridor, turn a corner, see another long corridor, and then repeat. The whole thing needs to be torn down and rebuilt in a sensible fashion.
I’ve been through several of the US’s “worst” airports, and every single one was a model of efficient design compared to Pearson.
Pearson is said to charge high fees, and public transportation there was difficult for many years. It is confusing unless you have been there many times. It can be a long walk and then a short bus ride to unpopular flights.
But it is not all feathers. It has a lot of places to eat, which are reasonably priced by the standards of international airports. They have rarely lost or delayed my luggage. People are generally efficient and polite. They have those luggage carts available. It has become noticeably brighter and more artistic over time.
Not my favourite airport. But there are many I like less. It is not the only airport with long corridors.
Yeah, I’m mystified by people who’ve had bad experiences on Delta. My father-in-law is a retired Delta red coat, so my wife and I always fly on family/ buddy passes. A reduced fare for her, and an more expensive but still lesser fare for me. The downside is that we fly standby, so our seats aren’t guaranteed. However, that’s only been a problem once, on our most recent flight home from Hartford Bradley, when we went up north for the eclipse. Our flight back to Atlanta filled with higher-priorty standbys, so we were bumped. Same happened with the next flight, and looked likely to happen again with the last flight. Fortunately, the people ahead of us were a family of four who chose not to be separated, so we were literally the last passengers on the plane. Annoying, and I was bracing myself to spend the night in the airport, but not really Delta’s fault. Mrs. SMV and I figured that we got bumped by passengers who’d tried to fly out of New York LaGuardia or Boston Logan, couldn’t get on flights, and decided to take a chance with the smaller Connecticut airport. We’ve flown into Bradley a lot, visiting friends in western Mass, and have never had a bad experience with Delta.
After something like 30 years of not flying Delta because they pissed me off, I was forced to take them two years ago and I loved it, even better than Jet Blue. So, now we mostly fly Delta unless there’s a big price difference.
Just flew BZN-ORD-BTV and BDL-DEN-BZN on United and had 2 delays but they actually communicated relatively competently and apologized. ORD is a crap shoot on the best of days. They had a ground stop for lightning when our flight was supposed to take off. Then we see 2 mechanics furiously disassembling part of the cockpit. Not good. Sounds like the emergency failsafe panel if all other panels fail, failed. Which requires replacement, then an inspection. C’est la vie. I prefer my planes functional…
The way back Denver was having severe weather–huge thunder cells with hail, and it’s pissing down and lightning in Bozeman now. We’re home an hour late. Adventures in air travel.
I think Air Canada gets a lot of shit for what Pearson does.
I’ve flown every major carrier in North America and Air Canada is no worse than average and maybe a little above. But Pearson is, by the standards of a relatively modern major hub airport, substandard. No major airport in NA has worse baggage return and it’s not close. The airport is generally poor at delays. It’s not well laid out, and is slow in almost every respect. The airport is just really, really badly designed in terms of its physical design and layout, and that can’t really be changed.
I’m not saying other airports can’t suck in some ways - DFW for some reason put its car rental place approximately a thousand miles from the airport - but none are just as generally poor at EVERYTHING the way Pearson is.
I did have my bags take one hour and forty-five minutes to get to the carousel in Montreal last summer, due to staffing issues (read: airport would rather us wait than pay for sufficient labour).
My worst-ever airline experience was due to a combination of Pearson and Air Canada. I’d say the issues were 80% Air Canada and 20% Pearson, though. And just in the last few years, airlines have gotten better at communicating with passengers, which makes a huge difference.
We flew Delta to Eastern Europe (partnered with Air France for the euro-leg). I’ve only flown domestically for the last twenty years, so was used to minimal food (so I pack plenty of snacks), but I was surprised at the quality of the food!
After every bite, I was thinking “Huh, and this is airline food! Wow…”
Airline food has come a long way over the years. The challenges of preparing decent meals are huge considering the challenges of transportation, storage, and reheating, all the more so when research has shown that the dry air and lower air pressure aboard an airliner affects how food tastes. Preparing good airline meals is literally a specialized art form, but it’s one that’s been well refined over many years. There are websites that feature pictures passengers have taken of their meals, and many of them are lovely enough to be fit for a fine restaurant and probably taste as good as they look.
I don’t think I’ve ever had an airline meal that was actually bad, not even in economy, but business class often has really superb food on longer flights.