Air Transat
TS 721
Manchester (MAN) – Toronto Lester B. Pearson International (YYZ)
24 January 2011

Before I begin, I should probably mention that this is my first ever Trip Report, so please be kind to me! About couple of time a year, Mrs. SCB and I head over the Atlantic to Toronto to spend quality time with the in-laws and various friends in that part of the world.

I should also say (and I have no shame about this) that neither of us has huge amounts of money to spend on our flying, being a young married couple, to use a cliché and just starting out in life. So value for money is a huge consideration when formulating our travel plans. As part of Canadian Travel Specialist Canadian Affair’s winter program, Canadian carrier Air Transat is offering a weekly non-stop service between Manchester, UK (MAN) and Toronto Lester B. Pearson International (YYZ). The Canada-UK leg leaves YYZ on a Sunday evening as TS 720 and returns from the UK on a Monday morning as TS 721. We were lucky to be able to grab two return tickets on this service for a total price of GBP 632.

The flight

Flight: TS 721
24.01.2011
MAN – YYZ
Aircraft: A330-342
Flight time (actual): 6h53 minutes

The long-anticipated morning of our departure arrived at last and, rising early, we made the short walk from our flat in central Manchester to catch the 0558 service from Piccadilly Station to the airport. This was pretty much without event, and 15 minutes after leaving the City Centre we were arriving at the Airport station. After a short queue for a lift, we were on the upper level and making our way through the neon-blue Skywalk to Terminal 1 check-in.

Check-in had opened at 0610 and was still fairly empty at the time we arrived. Before being allowed to proceed to the check-in desks, there was a brief security check to examine passports along with a couple of questions regarding purpose/length of time to be spent in Canada. This was similar to the screening carried our prior to check-in for US flights, but nothing like as arduous. We were soon on our way into the check-in queue proper and were immediately directed to a fairly pleasant agent who checked our bags and issued us our boarding passes. One small gripe: our hand luggage was weighed individually and a bilingual ‘Cabin/Cabine’ sticker attached to each of them. This upset Mrs SCB slightly when, at the end of our trip, she removed this from her leather bag to find it had taken the finish off with it!

We proceeded immediately to the security area which was fairly quiet. As others have noted elsewhere on FT, the automatic turnstiles have now been taken out of use (covered with plywood boards) in favour of a system where pax proceed directly to the queue for the scanners. BPs are then checked and scanned by the screener as you place your belongings onto the belt. This undoubtedly is better than the previous system, where most travelers seemed to ignore the turnstiles to proceed instead to the ‘human being’, thus causing huge back-ups in the queue. The lines did flow a lot better but it seems at the same time a bit of a waste to have all that equipment just sitting there seemingly obsolete. Maybe MAN has further plans for them?

Security was quick and courteous and we had soon cleared into Departures. After running the gauntlet of the Duty Free shop (which you are required to do in MAN T1 before you can get to pretty much anything else), we proceeded to the Servisair lounge to which we had purchased access to begin our trip. After being admitted by a pleasant attendant, we chose some seats near the picture window where there are great views of the apron towards T1/T3 - plenty of comings and goings at that time of the morning (EI/FR/VS/SQ/EY/US/AF/BA among others). Food offerings were OK but not magnificent – a selection of hot and cold (including alcoholic drinks) along with various mostly snacky-type food offerings. I had some cereal with milk along with a yoghurt and cereal bar. I also had numerous cups of coffee/glasses of OJ to ease the effects of the early start coupled with a late night the previous evening.

At 9.15, our friendly attendant came over to advise us that our gate had opened and we would need about 10 minutes to get there. Thanking her for our stay, we left to make the walk down to the gate. The area around Gate 27 was rammed by the time we had got the, with all seats in the immediate vicinity full and pax forming a long line from the desk even in spite of numerous PA announcements that boarding hadn’t yet commenced yet. We took seats in a nearby empty gate area to wait. After about a further 10 minutes, boarding was called for people requiring extra time/young families etc and Club passengers. General boarding by seat row number was then called, but then seemed to promptly come to a halt with the doors to the airbridge suddenly closed and pax told to re-take a seat. About 5 minutes later, there came an announcement that a technical fault had been identified with the aircraft, and an engineer had been called to take a look. By this time, it was about 0955, and with departure scheduled for 1010, some form of delay to our previously on-time departure seemed inevitable. The MAN website, however, (checked via BlackBerry) had the flight as departing on time and ‘Final Boarding’ which was slightly annoying. An automated final boarding PA announcement for the flight (which I guess nobody thought to cancel) also caused another surge forward in pax who thought that, in spite of everything, they were going to miss their flight. We then spent the next while biting our nails and wondering if we were going to get to Canada that morning – it was also frustrating that very little in the way of updates was coming from the Ground Staff and we just had to wait, hope for the best and see if we could glean any insight from other pax or the expression of staff in the gate area.

Much to our relief, at about 1030 an announcement was made that boarding was to recommence by seat row number. Our range was called first and we were boarded fairly quickly. We were welcomed pleasantly on board by Canadian FAs (a vast majority seemed to be French Canadian and all were seemingly required to be bilingual) and directed to our seats. Plenty of space was available to stow cabin baggage and we soon settled into our seats for the hop over the Atlantic (as this is my first TR, I felt a little self conscious so didn’t take photos of the seat etc – sorry!). All I can say is that the legroom was more than adequate; however the only downside was the lack of personal (i.e. seat back) IFE – we had to settle for the old fashioned overhead TV screens. The rest of the pax boarded gradually – however at this point the Captain came on the PA and confirmed (confessed?!) that the technical fault hadn’t actually been resolved yet and that engineers were working on it and that he expected it to be resolved “within about 20 minutes or so”. A good half hour passed and we were no closer to departing – cue Captain back on PA advising that it was taking a little longer than expected to resolve and that he expected us to now be pushing back (you’ve guessed it) “within about 20 minutes or so”. This generated more than a cynical chuckle from a number of pax (including myself) who were beginning to think we might not be going anywhere after all. However, thankfully, the problem did seem to get fixed and we pushed back to depart about 1h30 minutes late.

Shortly after take-off, the first drinks service began. Air Transat charge for all alcoholic beverages (with the exception of wine with the meal – more about this later…) on board as well as snacks; however soft drinks are offered free of charge. Mrs SCB and I both chose an Iced-Tea and killed time with the in-flight magazine (English/French bilingual) and the movie whilst waiting for the meal service. This came shortly in the form of a hot lunch (although service was suspended slightly due to a bout of turbulence) and a choice of barbeque chicken with rice, pasta with chicken or vegetarian pasta was offered. However, by the time we were served only the last option was left so we ended up with this (again – sorry no pictures!). The pasta had a creamy pesto sauce and was edible enough – it came on a fairly decent meal tray with a cold rice salad, bread roll and butter and cake for dessert. A much trumpeted element of the service was that a complimentary glass of wine was offered to all pax, although this was a bit of a let-down when it came as the ‘glass’ in question came as a meagre 100ml. Still, better than nothing! The crew then did a tea/coffee run to end the meal. The crew were polite and professional but at times a little distant – any attempt to engage them further was not really successful (maybe they were tired as this was the inward leg for them?). Nothing really to complain about but a smile might have gone a long way…

The remainder of the flight passed without event and we killed time with more of the IFE (more movies then assorted TV shows/documentary shorts about Canada and an interesting Canadian trivial quiz) before the second service which was an adequate hot cheese and tomato pizza slice with a further drinks run (juice and tea/coffee). Before long, everything was cleared away and we were preparing for the landing at YYZ, where we touched down about 1h10 minutes late (a little – though not that much – time made up en route).

Deplaning was fairly rapid and we made the longish hike to Canadian Customs – the queues were pretty short and moved well so we were soon processed through the formalities and made our way to baggage reclaim. Baggage arrival was painfully slow and we were a good hour waiting for our bags (queried with handling staff and was told that some equipment had frozen up in the very cold weather – thought this was a British excuse?!). Thankfully, once finally reunited with our two suitcases we were quickly through the final customs check and into the Arrivals Hall where my (very patient) Father-in-Law was waiting.

All in all, I was pleased with the service on offer from Air Transat. There were really only two things that let the trip down: first was the delay at the start of the flight which, although unavoidable, could I believe have been handled better by keeping pax updated better. The length of time in delivering the baggage in YYZ could also have been improved but could also have been a weather-related one-off.

On the plus side, I would say that the convenience of a direct MAN – YYZ service is supplemented by competitive fares and a good on-board product which seems to strike a reasonable balance and compromise between low-cost and full-service airlines.

Thanks everyone for reading this Trip Report – I hope you enjoyed it and appreciate your thoughts and comments!