Review of Air Canada flight from Singapore to Vancouver in Economy

Project 61: Quadjets + RTW! Part I (Getting to YVR)

Prologue

Having read Simple Flying's 2025 May's article on flying quadjets in a seamless round trip, I decided: "Well, challenge accepted!" and did a bit more part-time research on my own for such a trip.
 
Since I'm based in Singapore, one of the earliest (and arguably easiest) options was described in the article: fly the B744 to Frankfurt, then Shanghai on the A346, and finally back on the A388. For completeness, the following ‘thin’ options (looping at FRA with similar opposing directions) were considered but not actioned upon largely due to poor transit timings:

• SIN-DEL-FRA-SIN (A388, A346, B744)
• SIN-FRA-RUH-DXB-SIN (B744, A346, B7M9, A388)

I even entertained the idea of doing this with Lufthansa’s NW25 schedule, when they start flying A346 to JFK. This planted the idea of super-sizing a three-flight trip into a round-the-world one:

• SIN-ICN-JFK-FRA-SIN (B78X, B748, A346, A388)
• SIN-PEK-JFK-FRA-SIN (B78X, B748, A346, A388)

It was about a month later, in June, when I stumbled upon the fact that Lufthansa flies the B744 to Vancouver currently. And Air Canada has reintroduced direct-to-Vancouver flights as of last year, after Singapore Airlines stopped two years ago…

It is too perfect an itinerary to pass up; not only do I get to turn this into a round-the-world trip, but the transit times at two cities I get to revisit after many years (Vancouver, Shanghai) are also good for daytime sightseeing. Entry requirements are also favourable for my passport, too.

The icing on the cake is Lufthansa’s direct purchase for the one-stop ticket from Vancouver to Shanghai via Frankfurt (‘the long way’) on one PNR, instead of having to deal with two PNRs and any unexpected setbacks associated. I just got to reposition myself to Vancouver, using the most efficient connection…

Presenting the final itinerary (local times):
• T 09:10 SIN-YVR AC20 B789 (14h55m)
• T 09:05 YVR (7h10m stopover)
• T 16:15 YVR-FRA LH493 B744 (9h45m)
• T+1 11:00 FRA (4h5m stopover)
• T+1 15:05 FRA-PVG LH728 A346 (12h10m)
• T+2 09:15 PVG (7h35m stopover)
• T+2 16:50 PVG-SIN SQ833 A388 (5h30m)
• T+2 22:20 SIN
Flight time: 42h20m
Layover: 18h50m
Total: 61h10m

Hence Project 61!

Aircraft

I flew on the C-FRTU, the second-youngest plane on this trip at 8 years 2 months. I find it remotely interesting that while it’s not the focus of this trip, it’s the newest amongst the four types – and a twinjet – that’s taking on the longest flight.

Route

It’s made even longer due to strong headwinds – the captain informed us of an hour’s extension for arrival even before departing Singapore. FlightAware puts this as the longest flight in the recent three-month history, and we were flying further south than what's usually expected.

There were some slight turbulences as the flight path cut across the Philippines and (far) south of Japan, and by my count the fifth and final time when we were (far) north of Hawaii. The second half of the Pacific crossing was smooth.

Seating, IFE

I chose 33A, to be explained in the next flights. The under-seat space was spacious for my backpack to lie during take-off and landing. Otherwise, I prefer having it sit up next to the fuselage to free up even more leg space. In economy seating, two AC outlets is shared between the three-in-a-row passengers.

Air Canada has a good selection of streaming titles across Apple TV+, Disney+ and HBO Max. For some inexplicable reason, YVR was rendered as the destination XXX and that we will land at about “01:00”, which on hindsight is the departing airport’s time zone but you’ll imagine they should use the arriving one instead.

Since I was accumulating miles for my KrisFlyer membership instead of Aeroplan, I didn’t get in-flight Wi-Fi for free and opted to pay 30.75 CAD for the entire flight.

Food

Two meals and a light snack were served in total. The main meal started about an hour after take-off (which kind of makes it dinner, in Vancouver time), the light snack was about six hours in and finally breakfast about an hour before landing.

I opted for the vegetarian tofu and noodles for the main, and omelette for breakfast. Portion might be a little on the lighter side, while taste and variety is good enough.