I am looking at booking a flight to Vancouver from Australia in January 07 with Air Canada. I have heard some talk that they are financially in strife, whats the talk in Canada ?

No problems. AC went through troubles but things are good now.

Air Canada came out of bankruptcy protection nearly two years ago, and its parent ACE is now showing a profit. There is no financial strife, and Air Canada today is one of the more successful world airlines.

Thank you for the reassurance ! Local knowledge is a great thing !

For a very long flight you might want to do a little research about the planes, comfort, services etc before booking to make sure you get what you want for the price. Generally Air Canada is fairly good, but I'm not sure about that route.

http://www.airlinequality.com/Airlines/AC.htm

You might also want to check out the discussion forum for Air Canada Aeroplan members at www.flyertalk.com. FTers are frequent travellers who seem to know all the ins and outs of the particular airline they usually fly. They can probably tell which is the best seat on the route you're booking and who will be serving you that day.

Thanks for the info and the sites. We are looking to fly business class with them !

Marko, I posted a reply to your question on AC's business class on the airlines forum:

http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34553683

Don't know whether you saw it or not.

Anselm

I can't imagine how they can possibly be in any financial strife.

The amount of money they must save on things like quality of food, comfort of passengers, inflight entertainment and staff training would keep a mid-sized African nation going.

I flew that route with AC last Feb, and it wasn't a good experience. Admittedly, I flew cattle class, but when you consider how many airlines are pulling their socks up in that department (Singapore Airlines is an excellent example) AC left a lot to be desired. Rubbish food, same movies there and back and the only thing the staff is uniformly trained to do is to be absolutely sure to bump into you every time they walk past.

More pertinent to your situation, Marko, is that I distinctly remember that when I was walking through the daggiest Business Class section I've ever seen I was about to say to my wife I would have been very annoyed to have paid Business Class for that, she beat me to the punch and said exactly the same thing.

Hopefully though, they'll upgrade the aircraft on that route before your flight.

anselm, thanks for that I had missed it ! Paul H, thanks for the frank discussion ! At this stage we are waitlisted on AC and also with JAL going via Narita. The only problem is the overnight stay in Narita with JAL, it just seems to make the journey longer !

Marko

I am sure being Australian you have checked out Qantas. My friend flies between Vancouver and Brisbane several times a year because her daughter and grandkids live there. She loves Qantas and wouldn't fly any other airline now.

Not keen on the LAX thing and also it is significantly more expensive for Business class.

Marko,

It is a pain that AC has the most direct flight. Given the timing of your trip, are you going to Canada for skiing/boarding? If so, you could always get a few turns in in Japan on the way. Haven't done it myself, but heard lots of good reports.