Air CanadaReviews 86

Used it for the 1st time traveling abroad through Toronto, Canada (1 stop) on June 2022. Flight was long, tiring, "shaky" and landing was a bit hard. The flights were always late. So many passengers were very stressed. My suitcase was missing TWICE as a result, upon arrival at my destination and back in the USA (after promising that it will follow me safely). Also the delays caused me to miss my connected flight and wait for 1 day. Many travelers had similar experience and I've learned its a norm in Air-Canada. Wont use them again.

I've never seen anything so bad. They said not to go to the terminal until my initials showed up on the screen indicating my luggage had made it to the plane. Well my luggage made it and I didn't. Then I stood in line for three hours to rebook my flight. Then they shut down and send me to another line. Total disorganization! I should have just went to the terminal hoping the luggage got there. Then they insisted my daughter wasn't on the plane. I was 100% sure she was. I truly have never seen anything so bad! Never fly Air Canada!

The camce our flight 2 times in one day at new York. They didn't give us any hotel and make us wait at airport for one day and make us stand by. Then after one day they give us the last flight for the next day with no hotel and nothing they just left us at airport and said we not able to give hotel its dirty busses. Don't even buy any tickets from air canada even be free they will kill your time. And they have no respect its awful they have dirty busines they are so rude at the airport

I hate flying Air Canada. Their slogan should be " we are not happy until you are unhappy". They charged us extra for oversized hockey equipment even though their website policy clearly waived the fee for hockey equipment. Check-in agent insists this is a discretionary policy. Congrats Air Canada yet another unhappy customer! You suck

We have just used Air Canada for the very first time and I have to say this will be the last time. Here's our story:

We arrived at Heathrow 3 hours early for our flight. The trouble is Air Canada had 2 flights leaving (one for Toronto and another for Montreal) within 5 minutes of each other! Needless to say this causes heavy strain on their checking in process. We duly waited in the queue and we were pleased to see that a member of their staff was checking all the paperwork before we reached the check-in desk. Everything was checked for our party of 6,3 adults and 3 children and we were given a green ticket so were we reassured that everything was in order. When we reached the check-in desk we were horrified to be told that we needed a Canadian ETA visa ever though we were only transiting through Canada and were never going to leave the airport. We were asked to step aside and fill in the visas online as quickly as possible and then everything would be ok. We did this and after around 5-10 minutes everything was in order. We then went back to the same check-in desk only to be told that checking had closed and we wouldn't be able to board the plane!

As you can imagine we were completely in shock. This was a long planned holiday to Orlando for a Disney experience with our children. We then had to rearrange our flights for 2 days later effectively reducing our holiday by 2 days. We complained to all the staff and their attitude was that because we are ultimately responsible for all our documentation that they were not prepared to offer any form of compensation, not even an apology!

To add insult to injury when I formally complained after getting back from out trip we were then told that they couldn't deal with our "baggage claim" and would not discuss it any further.

Air Canada are a complete joke! Incidentally this was not an isolated incident. Both days we queued for the check-in we saw MANY travellers in exactly the same predicament. This is an endemic problem with the Air Canada staff training and they don't seem to care anything about the stress and inconvenience to their customers. Avoid this airline at all costs!

Air Canada has fallen to the worst level of performance of any airline. They have the worst food, and their staff under the direction of corporate cant possibly provide excellent service. Their beverage service is limited to 3 to 4 ounce servings, their pilots rarely talk to passengers about delays, And they have outrageous charges for one hour use of their Internet in comparison to other airlines. The only advantage to Air Canada is some of their non stop routes between U.S. and Canadian Cities

Most terrible, unprofessional and expensive airline, as Canadian we don't have choice to avoid this airline because the regulatory regime of Canadian Government, the regulation of the Canadian air industry is supposed to ensure that the public has access to safe, reliable flights at the lowest cost. This mandate has been perverted.

The Government now subsidizes the employees and owner of Air Canada at the expense of the taxpayer and travelling public. Since the beginning of the pandemic, the air sector has already received over $2.5 billion in support through the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy.

I just paid more than C$******* for two persons for trip to India, is it a joke? Whereas you will get tickets through other airlines at C$1600-1800. Is it a healthy business model of a company who use our tax paying money to subsidies their inefficiency, I would say it is a ripping of money model, rip the people anyway.

For India: Canadian Govt. COVID regulation is as below which has no sense.

"Travellers arriving from India must have a negative COVID-19 molecular test from the approved Genestrings Laboratory at the Delhi airport.( Why this particular test laboratory?, and why Delhi, India has 1.2 billion population and having several Metro Cities?) The test must be taken a maximum of 18 hours before the scheduled departure of their direct flight to Canada.

Travellers who depart India to Canada via an indirect route need to obtain a negative COVID-19 molecular test result in the country from which their flight to Canada will depart. The test must be taken a maximum of 72 hours before departure. ( why we need to test again in Transit?)"

Not sure who are those smartest people in the Government took that decision and what is the basis of that regulation, this is a cash cow arrangement with some private Covid testing company at New Delhi airport ( I have huge doubt with their testing results). I will request those intellectuals' law makers to visit that place and try to understand the harassments people are facing as well monetary loss.
This Lab is charging Rs. 2900 for rapid PCR test, whereas all over India RT PCR cost is Rs. 300-900. Very well arrangement to give a particular company to make money.

Can someone law maker provides me the explanation behind this regulation, most of the countries all over the world accepting Covid test report from your home city certified lab before 24/72 hrs whereas Canada chose to the above peculiar arrangement…. Why … is Canada doing much better in Covid … Statistics not showing that.
Moreover, Service of this Airline is pathetic compared to any other big airline… quality of food, business class amenities bag. Everything very cheap. They put more money to prepare the menu card instead passenger comfort/services.
My humble request, please avoid this Airline as much as possible. We should encourage other airlines who provide travel accessible and affordable for all Canadians as I believe the fares have historically been too high compared to other countries.

I got a ticket for $1500 and it got cancelled by Air Canada. They never refunded me back. Only gave me $90 credit through the travel agent after being on hold for long hours

I was indeed fortunate enough to have encountered "Wayne". I had to fix some Air Canada flight connections. Wayne stayed with me on this and was so helpful and professional helping me fix it. Wayne is a great credit to himself and especially Air Canada. He is the model of what all airline agents should be. Treat him well, he can keep customers coming back for more. Thank you Wayne and thank you Air Canada.

Those considering using Air Canada(AC) for travel may wish to be aware of my recent experience flying the airline to Corfu (Greece) and back with two hiking buddies

After Air Canada resumed international service in May of 2021 it made five schedule changes before our June 18th departure for a 10 day hiking trip, including most remarkably a change in day of travel which resulted in the loss of a day hiking on the island, and necessitated rebooking of lodging for a number of the nights on Corfu.

Not easy to rebook on the fly for that remote Greek island.

But that is not the worst of it. Because of Canadian government and AC rules, Americans could not cross the border to begin the flight from Montreal until about two weeks before departure when AC allowed transit within the airport for connecting flights. This change enabled Vermont travelers to travel to Boston, book a flight from there to Montreal and connect in the aIrport with the flight to Athens.

Doing this, though, cost an additional $149 USD on a trip that originally cost about $900 USD and added almost two days to the trip.

Note, our residence in Burlington Vermont is only one hour 15 minutes to Trudeau airport in Montreal.

But the coup de grâce occurred while boarding the return flight from Athens on June 28th. At that point less than an hour before flight departure, we learned of a Covid test requirement to return to the US before we could leave Athens.

Air Canada obviously long knew of this requirement but did not alert us to it in the weeks run-up to departure from Montreal nor at any point on the three leg outbound trip nor on the first leg of the return trip despite multiple check-ins for boarding passes and multiple passport checks along the way.

Because of this negligent oversight by Air Canada and the need to get the test we missed our flight by hours, had to scramble to find a hotel in Athens for the night of June 28th and spend an hour on the phone to rebook a new flight on a different multiple city routing (only one available) for the next day at an additional cost of $70 per person.

Unforgiveable in my opinion.

By the way, AC charges about $11 per hour for onboard WiFi which is free in the airports it uses.

I for one, do not like air Canada.
I am from Canada and am frankly disappointed. Their planes are always dirty, one time when I used air Canada there was a very strong smell coming from my seat.
Many of you have rated a company and know that one star = stay away, that is exactly my advice to you.

I will never use Aircanada in this lifetime. I booked two tickets and they charged me a cancellation fee for a flight that they had cancelled due to corona virus.

Shame on you!

I booked many times with Air Canada and had several situations with them (just as with any airline), but they always solved the issue and gave a small compensation. I especially appreciated when I had to travel unexpectedly to attend a funeral, and they offered me a bereavement fare. It was great that I didn't have to worry too much about my flightd during that time. They gave me a fair price and made all the arrangements for me.

I've been reading the reviews, and the complaints you see are very much the same issues that could arise with ANY airline, anywhere.
No leg room, bad service, overbooked, late, delay etc etc are issues that anyone who travels a lot has encountered and they are not just unique to Air Canada.

Admittedly, I am a bit biased. I am a Super Elite 1,000,000 mile member with Air Canada. Yes I get perks because of that, but there were many years of non status flying with them I had to do before I got to this status. Even so, I still encounter some of the aforementioned issues. I just returned from St. Lucia on a Rouge flight. Rouge tends to have less legroom than others and the seats are not very comfortable, but I knew that going in. The staff was wonderful though. I recently had delay after delay when trying to get out of Toronto to Heathrow etc. The more you travel, the less affected you become by the issues that drive infrequent travelers nuts. Don't get me wrong... I get that it is very frustrating. But when you are a very frequent traveler, you learn that stuff happens, no matter where you are and you have to go with the flow. Easier said than done, I know. But if you are expecting to jump on a plane and have all the comforts of home and have everything go 100% smooth all the time and no issues, then you're better off taking a train.

I've traveled on many different airlines over the years, and I really can't think of one that I would not fly on again. I'm always very happy to see an Air Canada plane when I've been over seas for an extended trip. I've always been treated well, have (knock on wood) only had my luggage lost ONCE in over 25 years of frequent flying with Air Canada, and have the utmost respect for all on flight staff.

I'm proud to be an AIr Canada customer and hope to continue doing so for many years to come.

My daughter travelled from Lima to Montreal on flight 1943 on December 15th with her husband and two children.And she told me at the airport it was the worst flight in her life -and she travelled a lot.
Reasons:
-No room for legs
-No entertainment, no screens on the
Plane. You have to download an app to
Your device but if you do not carry one
Obviously you will not be able to access
Anything.
- Nothing but water on board.No coke
No juice, nothing
- Only one kind of breakfast totally
Unhealthy Scrambled eggs with
Sausages and potatoes.My
Daughter could not give that food to
Her child and there was nothing to give
Her not even a piece of bread or a
Cracker and that after the child's last
Meal was 12 hours before.
-And the most repulsive and unhealthy
Thing: the restroom floor was full of
Used toilet paper. Apparently the container to drop it was not working and there was no crew to take care of it. And by the way the crew was nowhere to be seen during the night at their usual place in the back of the airplane.
My advice STOP BEING ABUSED. DO NOT FLY AIR CANADA LIMA MONTREAL

This review is about how poorly Air Canada manage the delayed luggage. I flew from Montreal to Phoenix via Toronto. Toronto-Phoenix is a line highly demanded but we flew on a very small plane: there was no room for cabin luggage that were sent to luggage bay. And my checked luggage did not make it to Phoenix.The Air Canada employees (Erin and Tarpan) in Phoenix were very reassuring. It was monday 11:30pm and they told me that the luggage was still in Toronto and will be delivered at home tomorrow morning. On tuesday morning, no bag was delivered and I phone to customer service: they told me the luggage was not even located and the employees of AC at airport told me this just to see me disappear. LESSON 1: Never trust an employee from Air Canada.On wenesday, 48h after the lost of my luggage, I phone back to customer service and the status of luggage was still "lost". I took the name and number of the employee and asked to speak to his supervisor. The supervisor called me back 5 minutes later to tell me that the bagage was found in the meantime. LESSON 2: Never think that Air Canada is doing its best to find your luggage. Call and call back and take employee numbers and names and ask a supervisor, and THEN they are doing their best. I spent 500USD that day to replace some sporting goods in the luggage, but the supervisor gave me only 200USD of compensation given that the bag will be delivered on flight AC1837 the next day, on Thursday, at 12:13pm. The delivery at home could take 24h, so I said I will come to the airport. The worst of the story starts here.At 12pm, the status of my luggage on "world tracker" website (that gives you the status of your bag) was still indicating that the bag was on flight 1837 that left toronto at 8am. I came to the airport and surprisingly (or not), the bag was not there. An employee (I took his name and number) told me that the status of the bag changed 15 minutes after landing of flight 1837: the status is now that the bag will arrive at midnight, via flight 1835. LESSON 3: Never trust world tracker website: even if the bag is not on the plane, the status indicates the opposite even after landing of the plane 4 hours later! The incompetence of the employees makes this website useless.At this point it was impossible to trust anyone from Air Canada as it was the second lie about the arrival of my luggage. I asked explanation to the employee and he showed me on his computer that my bag was a rush bag (a bag delayed due to no space in the plane, remember the plane is very small). QUESTION: Why Air Canada did not tagged my delayed bag as urgent (72h delay at this time) as they are supposed to do with delayed bag? I finally got my luggage on friday at 1am after coming 12h later at the airport. I deeply regret to have already booked my next trip to Australia with Air Canada. I will have 2 bags, and it looks like that 1) some planes are clearly too small on some lines and 2) they poorly manage the lost bags and they are far from doing their best to forward them to you, and sometimes use lies to get rid of you. Need another proof of incompetence? On the way back, same line (Phoenix - Toronto), same ridiculously small plane, there was not surprisingly no room for my cabin luggage, and it was sent to luggage bay. But they put the WRONG name on the luggage tag! I saw the name of another passenger on the tag and had to quickly ask to put the RIGHT tag on my luggage unless it would be lost somewhere. LESSON 4: Always double check what employees are doing, and ask proof when they said they did the things well.

We booked a flight with air Canada, and we were rejected boarding because the flight was overbooked, they refused to compensate us and told us we had to rebook a flight that departs from another city. They even made us pay for the price difference between two flights and the transportation to that city.

One of my friend got the boarding pass first, but then air Canada told us that the plane is full so we cannot board. The airline admitted first that the plane was overbooked and we got kicked out because we bought the cheap tickets. But then, they quickly changed their reasoning to "you guys are late", even though the one of us "late" passengers got the boarding pass just a second ago.

Also not quite sure why they had to repeat again and again that we could have boarded if we have bought the preferred seat for some extra $$. If they are willing to sell some tickets for cheap, they should serve those who bought them!

Worst airline experience ever, I deeply regret being a loyal customer and accumulate over 20,000 miles with them.