The Air Canada Experience - Great Fare, Poor Aircraft

One of the things that helped me appease the missus when I booked Air Canada (she likes to fly direct) for our recent jaunt to Boston from Dublin was the prospect of a state-of-the-art entertainment system to while away the time. I was expecting something similar to this:
http://enroute.aircanada.com/en/articles/new-entertainment-from-gate-to-gate

What was to come was more of a letdown than seeing The Hangover after everyone had hyped it up.

We boarded our chariot (C-GFPH) in the pouring rain at Dublin and as we passed through the business class cabin (soaking wet!) it occurred to me that everything looked a bit 1992. Then as we trudged on through the economy cabin the missus pointed out the lack of seatback TVs aka PTVs. Oops. A long flight had just got longer. I suppose I should have read the signs. During the early hours of the morning of departure we had the Irish rarity of powerful thunderstorms accompanied by almost three weeks' rain in 90 minutes. Then, when we got to the airport the computers at the Air Canada check-in desks went down for about 45 minutes.

C-GHPF awaited us on a beautiful Dublin morning...

However, inflight entertainment isn't everything but comfort is, and the legroom onbaord was actually pretty good. It was certainly much better than that on Aer Lingus. For the record I have flown eight transatlantic flights on Aer Lingus and NONE have had PTVs. The odds are improving all the time though. Probably the thing I like most about seatback inflight entertainment is the moving map that shows you where you are. Sadly on this flight the crew gave us no route information until we were told "we're currently over Ottawa". Great. I always like to know where I am flying over. Then again I've always been a bit of a geography nerd.

Usually on these flights I seem to be a magnet for the seat in front to recline fully and cut off the circulation to my legs. Therefore, I would like to say a big thank you to the guy in front for not reclining at all during the 6 hour 45 minute flight to Toronto. As for the 1980s-esque projector-and-screen combo for inflight entertainment, it ceased working after about 10 minutes and the system had to be re-started. Not that anybody seemed to be watching the medium-sized screen at the front of the cabin. The movies She's Just Not That Into You followed by Ice Age 2 meant that my headphones stayed firmly in their little plastic wrapping throughout the trip. The passengers in Business Class had no PTVs either. Bizarre in this day and age. Having spent all that money for a poor product the passengers must have felt like this guy:

So what to do during such a flight? Reading is good but only up to a point, I find. Staring out the window only passes the time if there's no cloud and/or no mass of ocean down below. However, it was during one of my frequent window gazes that I noticed the aircraft's old Asiana registration of HL7269 could be seen clearly on the wing. I guess that explains why there were signs in Korean everywhere in the lavatories.

I understand three B767-300s in the Air Canada fleet do not have the more modern cabin and as Dublin-Toronto is a seasonal route with low yields it is understandable that such aircraft are deployed on the route. However, the airline's website is a bit misleading and these aircraft have no doubt disappointed a lot of customers. A large number of passengers on our flight were connecting to US-bound flights in Toronto (New York, LA and Boston being popular destinations) and such a product could lead to a loss of repeat custom.

All in all though it was an okay flight. After all €420 for a round trip to the US in July is nothing to be sneezed at (no Swine Flu jokes please). Funnily enough, our 75-minute Toronto-Boston leg of the trip was on an A319 with IFE similar to what I was expecting on the transatlantic flight. Better late than never....sadly the map didn't work.