Middle East: November 2021: Days 1 and 2: Flying

Middle East

November 2021: Days 1 and 2: Flying

Bedding in the sealed bag.

Air Canada 787-8 business class. Menu.

Menu.

Wine list.

Kind of a terrible pano.

Storage is a bit limited. That overstuffed flip-open pocket and then a lower magazine-type pocket by your feet.

Real glassware! *gasp*

Smoked salmon. Guacamole cream.

Chicken. Not bad. But forgettable.

Glamour shot.

Fruit plate and cheese plate. Because who's counting calories?

Toronto Pearson International Airport, Teminal 1.

Like Newark, they love their iPads.

Tilted Spheres by Richard Serra.

So few flights this late at night. That said 11 wide-bodies is still pretty respectable.

View from the second floor.

Air Canada Maple Leaf Lounge.

Love the high ceilings. Don't love the lack of power outlets. One of several good-sized seating areas.

Menu is a bit limited.

Food was better than United, but honestly still pretty sad.

Air Canada 787-9 business class. Got a window!

Menu. Laurent-Perrier champagne please.

Translated.

Want Les Essentiels amenity kit.

Laurent-Perrier champagne with Monkey popcorn.

Interior. Lots of grey.

Planned routing over Ukraine, Iraq/Iran-- pretty vanilla. Shade under 12.5 hours.

The simulated cockpit view is waaaaaay cool.

Duck appetizer. Why are the duck portions always so tiny. :-/

Ling cod with butter for dinner. Too much butter, but decent enough fish.

More cheese and fruit. Loimer Lois Gruener Veltliner wasm't bad.

Woke up after dinner to find that, instead, we'd flown over Turkey, the Eastern Mediterranean, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia.

And still had over 90 minutes to go.

Breakfast. Not bad. Would hesitate to call it good, but it wasn't bad.

Not quite sure where this is over Dubai.

As tempting as it was to fly Emirates to Dubai, their pricing was not competitive... throw in a alternative to fly business class instead via Air Canada's shiny new 787's and the decision was an easy one.

The hard product-- the seat-- was disappointing, especially finding that it wasn't quite flat, instead there was a bit of a dip between the seatback and seat cushion when flat, and my head hit the top of the wall. Privacy wasn't quite as good as expected, either. I couldn't scoot down because then the dip killed my back. I know, I know, definitely first world problems.

That said it mostly made up for it with a really freakin' good in-flight map, a nice enough screen, a decent selection of movies, and yes, the food was served on real plates with real glasses and actual silverware. The food itself was nothing special, maybe a marginally better than what United serves for the fish, the chicken was about the same level, the french toast was pretty but not particularly tasty.

The Air Canada Maple Leaf Lounge in Toronto, while spacious, has definitely suffered due to COVID-19 service cutbacks. Toronto is also still decidedly not the best place to transit through either, but at least they have employees at one end of the hallway to tell you that yes, the signs suck, but you gotta walk all the way back to the other end of the hallway for your connection.

Finally, the haul from Toronto (YYZ) to Dubai (DXB) itself wasn't too bad. Left the gate quite late (even had to refuel again before pushing back, we ran so late) due to some flight plan issues, but once we got off the ground the flight plan looked normal? ~12.5 hours, routed over Europe, Ukraine, the Black Sea, and Iran to the Persian Gulf. However, after taking a nice nap after dinner, woke up and found we had instead cut further south via western Turkey, the Mediterranean, Egypt, and then over Saudi Arabia-- adding something like 90 minutes to the flight. Not quite sure why, according to Rick, his earlier flight a few weeks ago had taken the typical, more direct routing over Iran.