Air Canada Acquiring Four Former Singapore Airlines A330s

The world's best pe!

Hope they acquire the soft product too, i.e. the flight attendants.

Nice to see the A330s will get the new business product, it's really ancient at this point.

This also shows how awful TAP's business class is. TAP uses these planes (along with other even worse A330s and 340s) for long haul, and sells these seats as business class.

Until such time as TAP takes delivery of all A330-900s it has on order, it is a Russian roulette game. You either get one of the old but nice refurbished A330s, or you get an awful A330 or A340 that TAP will not refurbish awaiting for the 900s.

Lucky, how do you figure out which routes on which dates will be flown by these planes. I am based in Montreal and would love to take advantage of this. Thanks.

Singapore Airlines' A330s actually have probably the world's best angled flat product, due to the vast number of storage options, the comfortable seat "hardware", and the relatively gentle angle. Of course that's not saying a lot for a longhaul flight, but given this is premium economy... (I'd take it over the Tunisair/Air Tahiti Nui A340 version any day)

Also, anyone else think paying $27 to upgrade from an economy seat to an angled-flat premium economy product is kind of a no-brainer?

(Lastly, a disappointing number of airlines promised reverse herringbone on the A330 but eventually switched to something else – think Air France, Qatar Airways, etc.)

This is not a great business class product but a superb premium economy product. Good for Air Canada for making that choice. If I understand it, Singapore would use these for their "regional" intra-Asia flights. I flew these A330s in their business class several times from Singapore to Japan, which ends up being close to an 8 hour flight... so pretty much long-haul by transatlantic standards.

I will miss AC’s mainline 763s. Very humane and comfy in all cabins (especially the port side of J).

I flew one of these planes last week from Lisbon to Toronto. The plane was in reallly bad shape... It felt like time travelling to the late 90's...

@GoAmtrak: +1. I don't think they're very popular, but I for one really liked those 767s with the 2-3-2 economy class and early adopter of the herringbone business class product. They were the smallest of the recent widebodies so felt a bit more private and less packed. AC also used them for non-stop flights to secondary airport cities like Halifax, Edmonton, Ottawa from LHR... it was fantastic to be able to fly non-stop instead of hubbing in Toronto or Calgary.

Not hard to see why AC is the best airline in North America, although the bar is quite low. I recently flew to Paris with them, and it's easily the nicest way to get from West Coast NA to Europe (in J).

Wow

Lucky, what tools do you use to quickly determine what route a new aircraft has been assigned to? Seems unlikely that you just kept trying city pairs with random dates until you found what you were looking for.

Good on them for selling it as P.E.
Also, would United be interested in those 767s?

@GDL - There are various websites announcing changes in equipment, route, and schedules, such as my favourite: AirlineRoute.

Isn't Singapore Airlines famed for taking very good care of their planes. I'd assume that the plane is in very good condition though someone commented that they recently flew the A330 to Toronto and the plane looked tired.

Where was Delta? They are usually the first to sniff an impending sale of old aircrafts and buying them.

@ Sam — Quite the opposite. Singapore Airlines’ customer service is renowned, though they’re notorious for not being 100% on keeping their leased planes squeaky clean. China Airlines, EVA Air and Hong Kong Airlines have all acquired ex-Singapore planes, and things are broken here and there on all three.

I recall an AC press release that said the 333 fleet would be YUL based. It is generally regarded as a lower yield market than YYZ or YVR so solder aircraft with cheaper costs make sense.

#skedguy, AC successfully feeds intra-Canada, US and international flights via its hubs in YVR, YYZ and YUL. The A330s are being based in Montreal because of the aircraft's more limited range. And actually, when the widebody refurbishment is completed, the A330s will be the most up-to-date plane in it's fleet.

@Alvin--thanks for the insights. How do we know which SQ aircrafts are leased and which are owned by them? I have heard some rumors that ex-SQ aircrafts are OK, but not as good as ex-ANA or ex-JAL birds.

In general, which airlines are known for top-notch maintenance? Which are notorious for poor maintenance?

The first year Etihad operated they used retired SQ A340 aircraft. Flew AUH-JNB and the seats in J were abysmal and thoroughly trashed.

AC has already said that these aircraft will offer only Premium Economy and Economy fares. Those seats will not be sold as Signature/Business class.

@TravelSafe As a CX flyer I always find their 20 year old 330 clean and well maintained, it’s usually when I checked them I realized their age (IFE performance especially abysmal airshow not included)

I just booked a flight LAX -YUL -LAX in mid June and Air Canada is selling them as lie-flat business seats

Daniel, the majority of Air Canada's A330's do offer lie-flat 1/1/1 Signature (Business class) seating (Layout 1). The front cabin in the 4 aircraft new to the fleet are being sold as Premium Economy (2/2/2) (Layout 2).

I can confirm that AC is now selling these seats as Business Class on the YUL > LAX route. Beats the crap outta their domestic business on the A320s, so I’m not complaining 😉

I’m on A330-300 in business class , same Singapore seats, entertainment system not working, old outdated and it’s end April 2026,
Montreal to Vancouver sold as business $5,000, for this terrible seat .