First flight ever where we had to pay for almost every single item on the 6 hour trip (medium haul) to Vancouver from Mexico City. First seats didn’t recline at all. Second if you had no credit card to pay for food you had no food for the whole trip. Third most of the menu items were not even available. If you needed ear phones to listen to the entertainment system you had to buy them 3.95 with a credit card. The only free things of this flight were water and non alcoholic beverages twice during the trip. The staff were pleasant and experienced. Considering the flight left at 6 am and many people would have skipped breakfast the lack of food was disappointing at best and exploitative at its worst. For some reason the staff were announcing to un recline the chairs when non of them reclined making me think they had no idea what plane they were flying. The landing and takeoffs where smooth again hinting at an experience crew. Seems like management have hit on hard times and are cutting corners to save a penny. Overall worst flight experience I have had in 15 years of flying.
EDITORS COMMENT: If your seats were backing on to an emergency exit or bulk head then they wouldn’t recline but the rest of the seats would. Air Canada does operate on a low cost philosophy for short and medium haul flights.
