Trip Report: ORD-YUL
I was originally booked on a 9:15pm United flight from Chicago to Montreal, but when I checked the departure monitors when I got off of my SFO-ORD flight, I saw that there was a Montreal flight leaving in 40 minutes. I hustled from Concourse C to Concourse B to Concourse E. The exceedingly friendly Air Canada agent (I actually hadn't realized I was trying to get on an Air Canada flight) told me that there was room, but I would first have to check myself out of the original United flight at a different United Customer Service counter. I "offloaded" myself (terminology the United agent used), and then went back to Air Canada to check in. The danger I guess is if the new flight suddenly fills up while you are offloading yourself; the United agent did warn me that my original flight was oversold (i.e. wouldn't be able to get back on if my new plan didn't work out). Thankfully the Air Canada was so empty, the friendly Air Canada agent even gave me two seats for myself.
Changing to Air Canada was exotic even before we took off. The pilot addressed us first in French, then in French-accented English!
Even though this is a regional jet, a CRJ705 operated by Air Canada Jazz (strange name for an airline), it did have in-seat video monitors even in economy class. However, the sound quality wasn't good at my pair of seats, so I just watched the flight map and listened to my French language podcasts to brush up on my French.
A bag of pretzels was served, a big step up from no snack which would have been served on the United Express flight. The ticket I was transferred to on Air Canada was a full-fare economy ticket, which would have entitled me to even more food had there been snacks and sandwiches for sale (there's a little symbol that appears on your boarding pass). Unfortunately, this was only a 1 hr 38 minute flight so there wasn't buy on board service.
