Flight Review: Air Canada Sydney – Vancouver

By Hannah Edensor

This 14 hour direct flight from Sydney to Vancouver comes with a side of Canadian cheer.

CLASS: Economy

SEAT: 28A

DEPARTURE TIME: 10:20am

CHECK IN:

Qantas handle the check in and when I arrive there are no queues, unlike the rest of Sydney airport desks at this manic time of the morning. It was fast and they manage to change my request from middle seat to window seat at the gate.

SERVICE:

It’s great to hear Canadian accents from the moment you step on board. The staff are hyper-cheerful and chatty. One stand-out crew member winks and makes jokes with all the passengers, never resigning from good humour throughout the long flight.

They are a hard working crew, if they weren’t serving they were walking up the aisle with water for what felt like once every 15 minutes. This is old school cabin service in contrast to other airlines that tend to point passengers to the nearest tap when they ask for water.

ENTERTAINMENT:

The entertainment system EnRoute has to be one of the more cultural in-flight viewing systems. There’s a section on a Canadian film festival the airline is sponsoring as well as categories based on genre – Hollywood versus Avant Garde. The screen is wide but the touch screen is not always responsive. With no remote or console to control it, the screen needed some finger jabs until it registered.

CATERING:

Lunch is sizeable, and is a choice of chicken or beef with potatoes and vegetables. There’s the usual bread roll, plus a bean salad and a cheesecake for desert. It’s standard economy class fare but the portion size is more generous than others.

The crew leave a basket of snacks by the galley for hungry marauders during the 14 hour plus flight. Breakfast is eggs or pancakes. The meals aren’t the most health-conscious, but they’re filling. There is no menu card, so meal choices are announced over the tannoy.

SEAT:

The seat feels wider than other economy products. But the upholstery is a little tired. Still, we’d all choose width over fabric. It was a comfortable place to spend 14 hours.

OVERALL:

The flight is on time, the bags are delivered with haste, and everything about this flight was smooth, efficient and cheerful. It pulls off service with memorable personality, despite being a full cabin. That’s quite a rarity in economy class these days.

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