SEA 2014: Air Canada Maple Leaf Lounge Vancouver Airport (YVR)

After an ordinary United domestic business class flight from SFO, I landed in YVR and headed to the Air Canada Maple Leaf Lounge. This was the first Air Canada lounge I’ve been to.

Since I generally assume that Canada is identical to the US except that it’s colder, has more maple syrup, and politer people, I was expecting the lounge to be pretty lackluster without many amenities. While this lounge wasn’t fancy, I was pleasantly surprised and would happily take this lounge over any business class lounge by a US carrier.

The lounge wasn’t too crowded, so it wasn’t hard to find a place to sit. It’s a decent-sized space with a couple of different seating options.

The part that I was most surprised by was the food. 1) There was a lot of it, and 2) it was super healthy. I think this was the first time I had seen kale in an airport lounge.

Personally, I love kale, which means I was in heaven. I also appreciated that the food items were labeled with allergens for people with dietary restrictions (e.g. gluten free or vegetarian). I honestly would have stuffed myself with kale had I not been about to fly first class.

Also, the bananas were actually ripe, which I appreciate. Not a fan of the underripe green bananas.

As for criticisms, there weren’t enough power outlets, which is a common critique of most airport lounges. Possibly because most of these lounges were built before everyone was carrying so many personal electronic devices. And trying to get internet access was way too complicated for me, so I just relied on my cellphone data to check stuff.

Overall, I really liked this lounge. I think all airport lounges should try to have some healthier food options (particularly given how hard it is to eat healthily on the road), and the Maple Leaf lounge definitely delivered in that respect.