Toronto to West Palm Beach on Air Canada

I flew from Toronto to West Palm Beach on Air Canada last week. I don’t fly Air Canada very often so I’m not very familiar with their planes. However, I do know that if you don’t book through AirCanada.com or have elite status with them, you can’t assign yourself a seat in advance so it’s important to log on to their website or app 24 hours before flight time to check-in.

To ensure that I picked the best possible coach seat, I first logged on to SeatGuru.com to see what Air Canada’s A320 plane had to offer. Since it didn’t give me a definitive answer whether there was Preferred Seating (extra legroom) or not (see screenshot above), I logged on to SeatExpert.com and their seating chart was even worse (see screenshot below).

So I started fishing around on Air Canada’s website, which I should have done in the first place, since I later learned it had the most accurate information. It turns out that Air Canada’s A320s do indeed have a few extra inches of legroom in their Preferred Seating—the first four rows of economy and the two exit rows (see screenshot below).

Since I no longer have elite status on United—which used to give me access to Air Canada’s preferred seating since they are Star Alliance partners—I was ready to plop down extra $$ for more legroom when I noticed that I was already reserved in Preferred Seating. That was thanks to the travel agent who booked my ticket (a good reason for having a well-connected travel agent).

I switched my seat from a full row to an empty one, hoping to have even more extra space. And then, when I arrived to the gate, I asked the agent if I still had an empty seat next to me and she said I had the whole row. Woo-hoo! That made the 2:31 flight go by almost too quickly as I wasn’t able to get all my work done. I just wish Air Canada had Wi-Fi to complement their individual entertainment systems and electrical/USB outlets.

Overall it was a great flight.