A meal that’s as good as any five-star restaurant you’ll find. Comfortable, lie-flat seats with fine French champagne. And a brand new, plush BMW to whisk you to an exclusive suite at Pearson.
The folks at Air Canada recently gave a few lucky members of the media a test run of their new Signature Service, which began on Friday for select customers on select flights.
If you’re a customer who can afford it or a business person who needs some extra sleep and enjoys a fine meal and being treated like royalty, or if you’re a travel agent booking a trip for a special client, this is one class of service you need to know about.
The Signature Service is the airline’s new “end-to-end premium travel experience” and features the Air Canada Signature Class Cabin, as well as the Signature Suite at Pearson, a new dining experience that’s unlike any airport lounge I’ve seen, including those at top Asian facilities.
Air Canada’s Signature Service includes dedicated check-in counters, expedited security clearance, lounge access, exclusive boarding lanes, priority baggage handling and many other features. Signature Service is available on international mainline flights operated on their 767, 777, 787 and A330 aircraft and began June 1 on select flights within North America, including daily flights from Los Angeles, San Francisco, Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver to Toronto, daily flights from Newark and Montreal to Vancouver and daily overnights from LAX, SFO and YVR to YYZ.
What services you get depends on the class of ticket you buy, of course. Air Canada gave the media the total package, which I have to say was easily the best airport experience of my life.
An Air Canada Signature Service BMW at Toronto Pearson. JIM BYERS PHOTO
We were met by an Air Canada concierge at the business class check-in area at Pearson a few hours before our flight to Vancouver and taken through security. After that we were whisked downstairs and out the door, where a gleaming black BMW 7 series LX with red Air Canada lettering on it was waiting, back door open and a uniformed driver standing by.
These are extended BMW’s, so you can recline the seat in back and even get a bit of a chair massage while you trundle over to the international terminal. They also have TV’s and Bowers and Wilkins speakers, not to mention plush, leather interiors. Air Canada has six of the cars now but will have 20 by year-end, I was told.
The car is nice. The Air Canada Signature Suite is nothing short of stupendous. Located in the international departures area of Terminal 1 at Pearson, there are a series of small rooms that feel like an exclusive restaurant or something you’d find in a penthouse condo in downtown Toronto. There’s a generous amount of wood, beautiful sculptures hanging from the ceiling and a fresh, rural scene on one of the walls complete with a small, red maple tree that might just remind you of a certain airline’s logo.
There’s a lovely “conversation pit” you can relax in, as well as a full bar with Moet-Chandon champagne on ice and a bartender who can mix you everything from a Don Draper Old-Fashioned to the Air Canada Signature Suite specialty, a smooth and flavourful mix with gin, sparkling water, a bit of maple syrup and some other things I forgot to write down; light enough for summer but with enough depth to enjoy in winter.
There’s a buffet with charcuterie and other offerings, including a space-age cappuccino/espresso machine I didn’t get a chance to try. They serve omelettes, sausages, hash browns and other items at breakfast, and folks who love Asian food can get dim sum, dumpling soup and other Asian dishes. But the real joy of the Signature Suite (besides the Moet-Chandon and the bar, I mean) is the full menu dining option, with meals created by celebrity chef and Air Canada collaborator David Hawksworth, who runs Hawksworth restaurant at the Rosewood Hotel Georgia in Vancouver, as well as Vancouver’s wonderful Nightingale restaurant.
A sablefish dish created by celebrity chef David Hawksworth at the Air Canada Signature Suite at Toronto Pearson. JIM BYERS PHOTO
The food, quite simply, was phenomenal. We got to have lunch at Hawksworth the next day and the food at the Signature Suite was just as good, and just as beautifully presented. There was a truly amazing Thai soup with lemongrass and carrot, as well as inventive salads, soy-braised sablefish (a Hawksworth speciality), sweet, deeply flavoured beef short rib, grilled octopus, fresh, sliced fish covered with tiny flowers, artisan cheeses and lots more. Every day they feature four appetizers, four mains and three desserts.
Everything is made in house, even the ice cream. They also have vegan and gluten-free items. And staff has come from some of Toronto’s top restaurants, including Canoe, I was told.
Of course, a lot of folks at an airport are in a hurry. Keeping that in mind, Signature Suite staff know exactly how much time various meals take to prepare and can suggest the right dish for someone who has only 20 minutes to spare, said Andrew Macfarlane, Airport Product Design Manager for Air Canada.
“This is ideal for people heading overseas because they can have a meal before getting on board, then go right to sleep on the plane and not have to wait for a meal to be served,” Macfarlane said.
Carrot/lemongrass soup, a David Hawksworth creation at the Air Canada Signature Suite at Toronto Pearson. JIM BYERS PHOTO
That may not sound like a lot, but that extra hour or 90 minutes is a big deal to a busy traveller who has to be at work the next day in Paris or Tel Aviv.
“This isn’t a lounge,” said Mats Winter, Chef de Service, Marketing – Specifications. “There’s no business centre and no TV’s. There aren’t any showers. But everyone who uses the Suite has access to the International Maple Leaf Lounge, where you can find those things.
Not every ticket qualifies for entry to the Suite, of course. Only Air Canada Signature Class customers on an Air Canada-operated non-stop flight to Europe, Asia and South America originally booked and ticketed in J, C, D, Z and P class are eligible to use the facility, and customers aren’t allowed to bring guests.
Following our remarkable meal at the Signature Suite, our concierge guided us through the terminal and onto our plane to Vancouver. We had a widebody equipped with the lie-flat seats and a terrific entertainment system with a huge screen and colourful, moving maps that showed the terrain of the Rocky Mountains and the plains of Saskatchewan as we flew overhead.
The beds extend to 6 feet, 7 inches so even tall folks should be able to get a good sleep. The seats also have lumbar support and a massage feature, and they give you a mattress pad, a thick blanket and a nice, fluffy pillow.
Air Canada Signature Service includes lie-flat beds and tons of great amenities. AIR CANADA PHOTO
This particularly flight didn’t have the full Signature Service on board so we missed the Laurent-Perrier Champagne that they usually serve. We had to suffer with Italian prosecco. (Yeah, I thought you’d feel badly about that).
I had a nice meal of parmesan chicken paired with a full-bodied red wine from Spain. With a bit of a nap, a fine meal and an outstanding entertainment system, our five-hour flight went by in no time.
After a night at the Shangri-la Hotel in Vancouver (beautiful rooms and a great downtown location with a Jean-Georges Vongerichten restaurant) we trundled over to Hawksworth for a lovely lunch with an asparagus salad, beautifully arranged albacore tuna and an Angus beef striploin with charred broccoli, then headed to YVR for our flight home.
“We’re constantly evolving our product,” said Ben Smith, Air Canada’s President, Passenger Airlines. “This is the next evolution for us.”
A big screen with tons of movies and TV shows, plenty of storage, Perrier-Laurent Champagne and lie-flat beds are all part of Air Canada’s Signature Service. JIM BYERS PHOTO
In an exclusive interview, Smith told me Air Canada did extensive interviews with fliers before deciding on the Signature Class product.
“At the premium end of the market, it’s become more and more apparent to us, especially on longer haul routes, that customers value and would definitely be interested in something closer to an international product, if not identical to it.”
Smith said a number of U.S. carriers offer this kind of service on flights between the east and west coast. But this is first time it’s available for flights in and out of Canada.
“So far the response has been fantastic,” he said. “It really is a step above.”
The Signature Suite in Toronto is the first of three. Air Canada will be soon adding them to both Vancouver and Montreal.
Smith said Signature Service is featured on 20 Air Canada flights a day, including five Toronto-Vancouver routes, as well as flights between Toronto and Edmonton and Toronto and Calgary and also between Vancouver and Montreal and Vancouver and Newark/New York.
It’s a big bonus for folks on red-eye flights from Vancouver, Los Angeles and San Francisco to Toronto, he said.
“What we’re hearing from younger business people is ‘I can do this; I can have the whole day and don’t have to waste a day travelling.’”
“The goal of this product is to match our international standard,” Smith said. “If you’re flying from Sydney to Vancouver to New York-Newark, it’s seamless. If you’re in a Signature class seat it will be the same all the way through. The food standard is the same, the lounge standard, the eligibility standard.”
Like Smith said. It’s definitely a step above.
