Air Canada is taking their premium lounges in a different direction with the opening of Air Canada Café at Toronto's Pearson International located at Gate D20 and officially open as of 5:15am on Friday, September 6.

The new “grab and go” format will allow Elite and Gold Status members to pickup something to take with them on the plane, or to relax and enjoy the bistro-like setting with free Wi-Fi and digital newspaper access.

Andrew Yiu, Vice President, Product tells us the reason behind the new lounge was that Air Canada is growing fast – with nearly 52 million passengers, the airline has doubled in the past ten years.

“There are a couple of factors; one is that we’re running out of space with the Maple Leaf Lounge,” Yiu says. “Air Canada is growing and rather than simply open a second lounge that mimics what we have, we wondered what a different concept would look like. Then we looked at our clientele who are frequent fliers domestically and tend to spend as little time as possible in the airport and when they do, they’re looking for a place to get something to eat and do a bit of work before their flight.”

Passengers will be able to visit the Barista Station for freshly squeezed OJ, a wide selection of Lavazza Coffee, cold brewed mocktails, specialty hot drinks or Lavazza Cold Brew. There’s also a self-serve station that will offer Greenhouse Juice products such as kombuchas and a variety of coffees, teas, flavoured waters, soft drinks and other non-alcoholic beverages. Other items such as Lindt truffle chocolates, OKA fine cheese and Gouter premium pastries will also be offered.

Yiu tells us that getting the right products in the lounge was extremely important.

“Similar to our other lounges and onboard the aircraft we want to be associated with premium products for our customers so getting the right product for our customers was very important.”

With the Café being the first of its kind in North America, TravelPulse wondered where the inspiration and innovation to put the concept into action started.

“The whole coffee shop concept is what really inspired us, business travelers and frequent travelers like to go into a shop to grab a quick bite, do a bit of work,” explains Mats Winter, Director Product Design - Airports and Inflight.

“So what would that look like in an airport environment? That is what inspired us. We have an innovative product that will hopefully change the dynamics of our clientele a little bit by offering a choice of grabbing something with the option to eat it on the flight or even at the destination. It allows for a little bit more time to lounge around and get more work done.”

Yiu says the space will give Air Canada an additional 30-40% capacity in their lounges: 109 seats in café, and approximately 330 in Maple Leaf Lounge. It will also allow for refurbishment of other lounges and ensure Air Canada is constantly meeting the needs of their passengers – not the other way around.

“It’s innovative and we're hoping our customers are going to appreciate that. Our strategy is to always do things for our customers. We don’t want to have them conform to what we do. We want to give them all kinds of options.”

It can be said that being in the lounge, a traveller can almost forget theyre in an airport and not in a comfortable restaurant.

Winter agreed. “That was exactly our mandate with the design process. We didn’t look at lounges – the inspiration was not from the airline environment, but from high end coffee shops. Airports can be stressful environments. We are tailoring to what our customer needs are now and in the future.”