Hopefully this means that the overall quality of flights will increase as well. I’ve flown BA between London and Toronto and also between London and San Francisco (and other american cities) – BA flights to the US are way better than those to Canada. I couldn’t figure out why, but a friend of mine who works in the airline industry said that BA only competes on each leg – so on the London to Toronto route, they are competing against Air Canada which is a crap airline, and so BA doesn’t have to do much to be better. On the other hand, when they fly to the countries, the services offered by other airlines are higher, so BA also has to step up its service. Don’t know how true this is, but it seems to make sense to me.
so since this new announcement, Air Canada also wants to upgrade their first class and business class to the BA standards (see bottom of article) of more than 5 years ago (woo-hoo – way to go Air Canada…) and hopefully they will also improve their economy service as well (maybe there is a chance we’ll get inseat televisions like every other airline..). but in my view the only way that quality will improve is if their is increased competition – the fact that airlines are increasing the total number of seats should say something to regulators to open the market to additional operators as well (I’m hoping Virgin Airlines starts up in Canada again soon). Until then, lets wait to see how long it takes for Air Canada to move into the new millenium… crap ass airline…