I’m going to China next summer, to see a total solar eclipse. The tour organizer has advised us to investigate flights early, since the Olympics are also in Beijing that summer. Obviously, like most of us, I don’t want to spend more than I have to. Also, it’s a looooonng journey, so I don’t want to have the flight rot more than necessary.
Does anybody out there have experience on Air Canada or United Airlines for long flights? Preferably both airlines so you can tell me which is more likely to be a pleasant experience? I want to fly out of Newark or Philly (as opposed to La Guardia or JFK), if that makes a difference.
I fly United a lot from DC to Indonesia. It’s a pretty horrible experience. They do offer something called Economy Plus that offers more leg room for about $100 more and it is better. I don’t have any experience with AC, sorry.
A colleague of mine flys Singapore Air for the US to Indonesia and he says it is much better, good leg room, and excellent services. IIRC, the price is about the same as United.
AC is much better. also assume you transit through vancouver. you also enter US customs and immigration in vancouver, which is 1000x better than LA, SF or Seattle.
Are you a member of either company’s frequent flier program? While they are partners, you don’t get United bonus miles if you fly AC and I assume vice versa.
I have flown trans Atlantic on United and the service is good. SAS is better, Lufthansa’s is worse.
I have no experience with AC long haul service.
I would suggest you also look at the equipment they are flying. If United has a 777, or a 747 I would take that over a AC (or anybody else’s 767). Triple 7s have more sound deading than a 76 and are way nicer to ride in.
I have no experience with United, but I can tell you that I find Air Canada flights perfectly tolerable. A warning, though: Air Canada’s short-range flights (at least domestic ones) are often on Air Canada Jazz (or Zip, or Tango; it’s hard to keep track). In 2003, I decided to cut short a vacation in New Zealand and rescheduled my return flights. When I arrived in Vancouver, I was surprised to learn that my connecting Air Canada Jazz (or whatever) flight hadn’t been rescheduled, because Jazz (etc.) doesn’t reschedule its tickets. I had to buy a new ticket (with Westjet, thankyouverymuch) to get back to Edmonton, and spent many sleep-deprived hours wandering around YVR waiting for my newly-booked return flight. I think that Air Canada (etc.) offered me a flight to Edmonton, for a nominal rebooking fee, that would have been two days later. You probably won’t have any trouble if you don’t reschedule, but nowadays I only fly Air Canada on airline points.
Air Canada and United are partners. “Partners” being a term they use - like if I fly Air Canada from Calgary to Baltimore, I’ll take an AC flight to Denver and then it’s United on the rest of the way.
Air Canada’s service is much better, and their planes are cleaner. I’ve never taken a really long flight on them, though, the longest has been about four or five hours.
I’ve flown pretty much every North American airline, and Air Canada’s the best. Not the cheapest, but easily the best. That wasn’t always true, but it sure has been these past 4 years or so.
For overseas flights, however, there may be better (if possibly pricier) options.
I hadn’t thought about clearing customs, but that’s a good point to consider. However, since I’m leaving from the US and stopping in Canada to change planes (and vice versa on the way home), why would I clear U.S. customs in Canada?
China Guy, here’s a link to the tour I’ll be on. There are other links within to various sites about the eclipse and about this group in particular. Eclipse Day is August 1 2008 in Mongolia. I travelled with them to a total solar eclipse in Libya last year and it was great!
Many Canadian airports have pre-clearance facilities: the US Customs and Immigration check is located in the Canadian airport. Once you pass through that, you are essentially on a US domestic flight. This gives the airlines a lot more choice in destinations in the US, since they can fly to any domestic airport rather than only ones with customs faciliies. For this reason you now see a lot of flights out of Canadian hub airports to smaller centres in the US.
I’ll admit I’m holding a grudge for something from 13 years ago, so take that with a grain of salt. But I wouldn’t fly United if there were any other possible option. Up to, and including, MAC flights, on a space-A basis.
It’s been more than a few, I won’t bore you with the details except for the last event that happened in July of this year.
I accidentally brought my Leatherman in a belt pouch to Dulles, and going through security, I removed my belt, and it fell off. Security was cool about it, they pointed out an electronic kiosk behind me which would allow to mail back stuff you couldn’t carry on board.
Well, after packing it in the padded envelope, the machine manage to take my money without giving me the prepaid shipping label, because the internal computer crashed just as soon as it accepted payment.
So with a suggesting of someone from TSA, I went to the United counter asking them if I check the Leatherman onto my flight in some sort of box. I figured that they’d say no, and while it sucked, I understood.
Well, the answer was no. But it’s how they said no, that help understand finally why some people are allowed the excuse of temporary insanity in a after an act of violence. Pissed enough to turn the counter person into pillar of salt, I walked away and tossed the tool in the trash. When I got back, I told my grandson, that if he wanted to fly the Boeing 727 on my flight sim, that he was only to use the United livery when engaging in a little air piracy or some non-FAA approved aerobatics.
[QUOTE=MLS]
Thanks to everyone! Very much appreciated.
I hadn’t thought about clearing customs, but that’s a good point to consider. However, since I’m leaving from the US and stopping in Canada to change planes (and vice versa on the way home), why would I clear U.S. customs in Canada?
[QUOTE]
Trust me on this one. It’s a lot better going through Vancouver than Seattle or LA. SF is tolerable but still not as good. there are probably 20 people trying to get through US customs on my Shanghai to Hongcouver flights. In fact, I’ll be doing it again on Monday. I get the choice of biz class on Hag air (United), Northworst or AC. Gimme AC, and it’s cheaper, and they have a decent cheese plate.
Air Canada has had a pretty bad reputation over the years here in Canada, however I think they have cleaned up their act a bit (probably due to the competition with Westjet)
An old Joke follows…
Air Canada’s motto: “We’re not happy until you’re unhappy”
I’m not 100% sure, but IME, this isn’t true anymore. Jazz and Tango don’t seem to even exist as separate companies any more; you book flights for them through the Air Canada website directly. When we missed our flight home from Orlando a couple years ago (Oct 2005- cruise ship came in late), the Air Canada office rescheduled both the AC/United flight (on an AC plane) to Toronto, and the AC Jazz (or Tango?) fare from Toronto to Montreal.
I haven’t flown long-haul in years, but domestic and Can-US flights with Air Canada have always been good for us.
I flew the AC Vancouver-Beijing-Shanghai-Vancouver circuit a few years ago and saw a bunch of people holding United tickets. So you’re probably flying AC anyhow. I got kicked up to business class on the trip home (on my birthday, sweet!). AC international flights are pretty decent. I haven’t flown them domestically for years, though.
Having never flown through LA or Seattle, I can’t say that they’re not good. However, Vancouver’s airport is AWESOME. There’s a little temperate rainforest in it. Makes me happy every time.
Mrs. Piper and I flew AC to Ireland last year, and again to England this year. Both trips were very good. I agree with the comments that AC domestically has had a few bumps over the years, but the service on both our overseas trips was good.
United is the only airline on which I have ever been asked to raise my hand to attract attention rather than ring the bell. Yes, cabin crew would be passing through frequently and we could make our requests then. Cabin crew did not pass through frequently, they disappeared after the food service and reappeared an hour or so out of LAX. Inbetween times, hungry passengers performed galley raids.
