I had the misfortune of flying air canada rouge from Halifax to Calgary and I will never do it again. I am 5 feet tall and it was a tight squeeze for me. Imagine how my 6'1" husband felt. And no entertainment unless you have a tablet. I highly recommend to everyone that they don't use air canada Rouge.

Isn't that the reason why the tickets are much cheaper on rouge?
Regardless, It seems most flights these days don't have anything for entertainment.

rouge is the budget version for Big Red.

If u don't have a tablet they will rent you one for $10, we did that to go to Maui & yes it was rouge. No doubt about the tight quarters tho ?

We flew to Paris with them. Worst flight EVER. I felt like I was in a sardine can. They added one seat to each row and narrowed the leg room to supply more leg room for business/1st class. BS!

Mona Agada

The cheaper the ticket, the crappier the amenities.

Chris
True but I booked the Sears using aeroplan points so I feel like I was ripped off a bit.

Sears with Aeroplans? If you book through a live person and the haven;t told you about the amenities or lack there of, you should question that person more then the product you got!

Stupid auto correct. Seats with aeroplan. Sorry.

Ok, make sense now! They do have way more availability on aeroplan for the rouge flights then their mainline product that's for sure.

I I've traveled with air canada rouge twice, once was to Vegas.. It was exactly as advertised. I didn't find the seats/leg room to be tighter than any other economy fare airline... Perhaps you should do some research before you purchase your ticket if entertainment/leg room are so important to you.

I guess everyone is different, but I would never fly ryanair again unless an emergency. We try to check to see type of planes that are being flown and look at seat guru regarding seat pitch. But All airlines can and do switch aircraft! So just look at choosing the best option for you based on time and distance flown balanced with cost. We found huge differences in comfort based on model and age of aircraft flown.

I flew the same Calgary/Halifax flight last year and used aeroplan points. Rogue flights use the same amount of points as regular AC offerings, yet the experience is inferior. That was a rip off! (But at least it was direct.)

That was exactly my experience.

we booked a flight to Hawaii last February with air canada using aeroplan points... a few months after booking we received an email saying the flight had been switched to AC Rouge... a refund was offered to those who had paid for their tickets but nothing for aeroplan tickets... it was too late to cancel and rebook on another airline as the prices had jumped considerably.. horrible seats

There is always a "down side" to cheap fares and I get in this case it was aeroplan, but generally speaking air canada rouge will always be amongst the lowest fares. This is exactly what their mission is: to compete with the likes of westjet, air transat and sunwing on price.
There is always a reason why an airline fare is chepaer and yes - sometimes it's just a really sweet sale where you get a superior product at a discount fare BUT most time you end-up getting what you pay for when you pay less!
Do your homework and look past the price! Check for leg room, change/cancel fee's, seat and luggage fee's would be a great start to evaluate value for dollar spent.

I was chatting with a air canada pilot, and they have a saying "you've been rouged". I had no idea I was being "rouged" when I booked my flight from Barcelona. It was a long, cramped flight. Now I know better, if I see rouge I won't consider that flight. It was that uncomfortable (but part of that was due to the shock of being rouged for my outbound flight, when I had such an amazing inbound with lufthansa).

I actually read about that in a blog from 2014. I had thought things might have changed by now.

Keep in mind that out of Calgary most airline have similar amount of leg room in term of inches (internationally)!
- air canada rouge - 30" leg room and 17.5" width (elbow room)
- air canada Mainline - 31" leg room and 17.0/17.3" width
- westjet (767 - Europe plane) - 31" leg room and 17.3 width
- air transat - 32/33" leg room and 17" width
- british airways (787) - 31" leg room and 17.5 width
- klm - 31" leg room and 17.5 width
Just to highlight that yes, rouge is an inch shorter then everyone else and that Transat has the most leg room of all!
Fly the other way, accross the Pacific and you get:
- cathay pacific - 32" leg room and 18.5" width
- ANA (77&) - 34" and 16.5"
- japan airlines (787) - 33" and 18.9"
- Korean Air (777) - 33/34" and 18"
So you can see the difference between Atlantic Flights and Pacific flights.

rouge also squeezed another seat into the row. so your seat width is also narrower

Both AC rouge and WJ fly the same airplane overseas and both have a configuration across of 2x3x2 and they can't fit anotehr seat across but they can add rows though with only 30"

Thanks for the info. Our flight between Halifax and YYC had 3 and 3 seats only, and it sure did feel more crowded than the regular air canada flights we took YYC to Toronto and Toronto to Halifax.

Chris Oh! You were on the other aircraft - A319 which is the single aisle version. That one is even worst at 29"...that's cramped and border line illegal!!! The configuration I mentioned was their 767 used Internationally.

I have been very fortunate that I have flown with almost all the airlines that you mentioned except for Korean, and here is my ranking in order of space and service (best to worse):
klm
japan airlines
Cathy Pacific
ANA
air canada Mainline (international)
westjet
british airways
air canada Rogue and most domestic too
sunwing
Transat
I will also rank easyjet above AC Rogue and Transat above ryanair, respectively.

Thanks Mona. That's great info to have.

It's all in the name - Rogue

Took rouge to Costa Rica with my kids. Was brutal. We could connect to wifi and use their entertainment feature to watch movies though.

Ugh. I recently had a chain of flights in Japan and then back to Calgary. I wasn't paying attention when I booked and ended up with an Osaka > Vancouver leg on rouge. It was my first time flying with them: Never again. I'm 5'6 and felt like a sardine in a can, and the lack of TVs etc was awful on such a long flight! Lesson learned, I'll be way more careful about carriers when booking multiple flights!