simon_healy

Hi

Just wondering if anyone has flown with Canadian Affair? We have just purchased four tickets for the family and are flying out from Manchester on the 8th of April.

Any good / bad experiences? Should we pre-book our seats, upgrade or will everything be OK on the day?

Thanks in advance.

Simon

smitp11

Yep, flew with them last October, Gatwick to Toronto. Flew with Thomas Cook, paid for the seats (£7 each/each way). Excellent flights both ways. No delays going out, 2 hour delay on the return. Also they changed our flights about 3 weeks before we flew and moved them back a day, because our original flight "was cancelled". All in all excellent value for money, and after all that is why most people book them, to save money. Potentially going to use them again this year. I would pre-book the seats...

Piff Poff

Yep flown with them on 5 occasions and have booked them for Mother-in-Law :scared: when she comes to visit in June and have recommended them to any one that asked. Always have prebooked seats although last flight was relatively empty so we had bags of space. Find seats narrow (i'm size 18 so not overly huge ). Cheap cheerful and so far always on time! Oh and the luggage allowance in the cheap seats isn't huge (20kg) but it is something like 5 pounds per kg over and they will charge it. Seen people throw all sorts away at check in.

Have a great flight

Posidrive

Travelled with them between Calgary and Gatwick on a number of occasions. Can't really grumble at all considering what we paid. Food and inflight entertainment better than Air Canada although you pay for all drinks except one free bottle of water.

I'm a stocky 5ft 10in and found the seating rather cramped, especially on the return flight when I was trying to sleep. I've heard that there is more space on the East Coast flights.

If you want to make sure that you sit together, either pre-book seats or be prepared to check in very, very early

tallperson

I flew with them Montreal-Gatwick with 2 kids last summer. The biggest bonus for me is the extra leg room which was fantastic. The seats are narrower though.

Didn't pre-book seats and didn't check in extra early and got 3 together and near the front no problem.

Flights were fine, nothing exceptional but dead comfy for me with the legroom!

Have had friends and family fly with them too with no problems and recommend them to anyone who is coming over.

Have a great trip

cov-canuck

We used them in October,and are using them again in May. My husband is 6'6", so most other airlines are unbearable for him. On our October flight, we booked the bulkhead seats for an extra £25 per seat, but it turned out he would actually fit behind normal seats, so this time we're just booking standard seats. It's definitely worth booking your seats in advance, particularly since early May is when their business really starts to take off after having closed many flights for the winter, so the planes get filled quickly. With two kids, you'll be safer booking 2 and 2 to guarantee your kids will at least get to sit with one parents (or you could always do what my parents used to do with my brothers and I and send the kids off at one end of the plane while they booked two seats elsewhere!)

Alberta_Rose

We have had good flights with them too, but they do have a history of changing the flight days/times at fairly short notice, and also cancelling flights and making people change airports, so it's a good idea to be prepared to be flexible on your departure days.

When this happened to us, they brought the flight forward by one day, which threw all our plans quite considerably. We'd just assumed they would fly at the days/times we had booked! The other thing was that although we had shelled out for booked seats, by the time we checked in they had given them to other people, as I think they amalgamated two flights or something.

To be fair they did give us some compensation for that and for other expenses incurred due to the change, but this was in 2004, and now I believe they don't do that, from others' experiences.

In summary I'd say they were good value, I especially like the seat-back tv's, but be prepared to be flexible and accommodate flight changes. Some people feel it is worth paying for the premium seats ... this also gives you extra luggage allowance!

Paul Freeman

We are booked to fly with them for the first time in May, but already they have changed our flight day and times from 1st May to 4th May - had we already booked accommodation, car hire etc, this would have probably caused us a bit of a headache. Also, we are booked onto a Thomas Cook flight - believe they also do flights with My Travel, which I understand are not quite as nice as the TC ones, although having done neither, I'm not in a position to judge. There was another thread on this subject on this forum a few weeks back - you should be able to find it on the search facility, but I remember there were more negative comments on that thread and recommendations to use Fly Zoom instead - it might be worth trying to find it and have a look.
Good luck for your flight (and ours too!)

michellej

You will have to let us know how your flights go,we too have booked with them,going from Manchester to Vancouver in June.Hope our flights stay the same day as we have pre-booked hotels and car.
Did think of asking the forum if anyone had flown with them but was scared of getting negative replies,there again,better to know :scared:

Michelle

Jingle

Hi! We flew with Canadian Affair last October. We upgraded to Premium Class - mainly because we took my MIL with us and it was a treat for her!

Flights were all on time, no changes made to the itinerary (although we were concerned about that based on other posts on the subject), flight attendants were fine (although perhaps a little grumpy on the return flight - but that might have been more us because we didn't want to come back!!).

All in all for the price they were excellent.

Good luck! J

britishvixen21

Yeah please let me know, Im booking to fly with them on May 8th, im a little worried that they will change my flights as im booked to Land at 8am and I have a flight to Ireland that same day at 1pm :scared:

simon_healy

Thanks for all your comments. I think we will pre-book our seats before we leave. I hope we do not have any changes to our itinery as we are flying from Ireland to Manchester the day before and staying at a hotel at the airport.

We will give an update when we have landed.

Simon.

andy_sheila

only gripe I had with them was with the toddler. we'd booked her a seat and were taking her car seat on boad, but they got mixed up and put it in with the luggage
6 hour flight with a squirmy baby isn't my idea of a fun time, especially as she doesn't sleep very well, that's why we wanted her seat. they'd promised child packages of games etc but didn't have them, and they didn't call families with small children first, so was a bit of a nightmare trying to keep hold of her along with all our hand luggage at the boarding gate. apart from that, very comfortable seats, loads of leg room.
would fly with them again, but be a bit more insistent next time

R2D2

WE flew with them......with no problems

M I L flew with them back in Oct. Flight home was put back 2 days

My parents have booked with them to fly to Calgary this May, and have just been notified last week that they are now coming out a day later, on the 21st instead of 20th.

What they tend to do if they don't sell enough seats is combine passengers together and run one flight instead of two.

Damned inconsiderate if you ask me !

Bazcop

Flown with Canadian affair and Zoom quite a few times now from Manchester to Calgary/Vancouver. Not much between either of them. definitely recommend upgrade to Premium on both airlines. well worth it. Extra seat room, extra luggage weight - 30K, dedicated boarding line-up at the airport, early boarding, early luggage retrieval. free drinks - even alcoholic if you need it! Mind which seats you go for though, if you have a choice avoid the rear seats and the very front seats, as sometimes the rear do not recline, and the front one's leg room is sometimes obstructed by the forward bulkhead. Also the front seats tv is not that good! Depends on the plane. Nice planes normally - Airbus A300. Tvs in the rear of all seats (leather normally in premium.) I have never had times altered, and we have always taken off and landed on time - the staff are also - generally speaking - very polite and helpful - and no I don't have shares in either of them!
happy flying.
Bazcop