After waiting months, I was finally able to get up to Business Class on 787 flight using an upgrade.
When I showed up at the gate I was told that business class was checked-in full and that I was 5th on the upgrade list (it’s unusual that the agents even disclose your position on the list). So I thought that I’d be sitting in my Premium Economy seat for this flight, but after boarding was complete the gate agent came onto the plane and gave me a Business Class upgraded ticket! Yay!
Above you can see aircraft at gate before loading and my Premium Economy (PY) seat that I was originally assigned before I was upgraded. Even the PY seats are pretty good!
As you can see on the seat map I was upgraded to 5G.
Pros: The things I liked about this seat is that it had an extra flat area to store stuff during the flight which some of the other seats didn’t have.
Cons: I could see over the divider where my neighbor was sitting and we were angled towards each-other so it privacy is limited. I also noticed seats 5A and 5K didn’t have windows.
I think in general this was probably one of the better seats in the Business Class cabin.
The seat is very comfortable and it’s spacious area.
When comparing it to AC pods (herringbone) config I noticed a few key differences:
- 787 J has more width to the seat and the space around you; it’s not as confined
- On the pods you cannot open the tray table with the leg rest up — which is annoying during meal service
- TV sets on the pods have to be closed for landing / take-off
I ended up watching Interstellar on the flight and picture was awesome.
The in-flight entertainment system is the best I’ve ever experienced on any airline! The screen is a massive 18″ which is much larger than any other AC offering. There is a touch screen-remote control as well which you can use to track your flight status on a map while you use the large screen to watch a movie. You can see in the image above I have flight tracker on the tray table off to the left.
I also noticed that these screens are true HD and widescreen format. Whereas, some of the other AC IFE systems are not HD or stretched-formatted widescreen.
The system is also setup better — making it easier to scroll through movies and grouping series of TV shows together.
The comfort control for the seat is on a touch screen and there a lot more comfort options such as lumbar support and headrest adjustments you can make. It’s much better than AC pods or 777HD which have limited set of controls.
The foot “coffin” goes deep on this one. There is a large space under the TV set to store your bag. It also offers a lot of space when you put the seat into “lie-flat” mode. It was a day flight so I didn’t sleep but I tried it out and it was quite comfortable.
Standard menu offering for an AC domestic flight
Started out with some Italian Prosecco, sparking water, and mixed nuts. I had to ask them to get the Prosecco from the economy cabin, because they don’t typically offer it to Business class on domestic flight — which I think is bizarre.
For the main course I order the Salmon which was alright. Air Canada could do some more work to improve their meal offers but it’s not bad.
Hold on, let me take a #selfie before landing!
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