keitherson

I booked a one-way from LGW to YVR on the few remaining days that the seasonal service was still running. It was around £200, which is around C$335.

WestJet flies from London Gatwick, which is London's secondary airport to Heathrow and focused more on leisure traffic. While not as nice as Heathrow, it is still functional with amenities. (And normally I would never describe Heathrow as nice, outside the bubble of the T2 Queen's Terminal that Air Canada and Star Alliance flies from) It is a far cry from Luton or Stansted, the discount carrier tertiary airports that look more like a Walmart.

WestJet flies from the North Terminal, which is generally considered the more premium section of the airport with more long-haul services: to get there, you must take a train from the South Terminal that connects to the Gatwick Express and train services. Virgin Atlantic will be moving to the North Terminal next year as well.



I forgot to take a picture of the WestJet check-in area, but it's fairly functional though there were slight line-ups. There is no separate queue for Plus/Gold passengers.

The check-in experience was overall the best part of my flight: the agent I had was positively delightful. She was friendly, professional, competent enough to smoothly make changes to my flight, and absolutely charming to small-talk with. She stickered my passport with "Premium Gatwick" as WestJet Gold and off I went through expedited security. Unfortunately, on my flight WestJet Plus was completely sold out, so I could not upgrade. And economy was full outside of an empty seat or two.

WestJet contracts Gold and Plus fliers to use the No.1 Lounge in Gatwick. I should point out that WestJet Plus offers lounge access for its Plus fliers, and that is a rarity among Premium Economy worldwide for most carriers. It's a great benefit.



Interesting Important Notice there.

The No.1 Gatwick lounge is quite nice, though very crowded. The interesting part about this lounge is that all hot food is ordered through the bar, which is very unusual for a business class lounge. The buffet is mostly limited to snacks. Alcohol is also ordered through the bar and not self-serve. BA also uses the No.1 Gatwick for their Sapphire passengers.



The food quality was good, and there was plenty of natural light but no runway views. The dining area really does feel like a restaurant, but I sat near the bar where the couches are more comfortable.

Unfortunately, it stops being fun here. My flight, WS 23 to Vancouver, was delayed by an hour. WS 4 to Toronto was cancelled and everyone was rebooked on the same replacement WS 4304 coming in from Toronto that was publicized on CBC. That flight would qualify for EU compensation.

WestJet announces to the airport screens that the plane is boarding at 12:45pm, at roughly the original time of departure, despite original delay announcements of an ETD of 1:45pm. So I head to the airport gate only to see this:



Line ups down the hall to simply get into the departure lounge area. Again no separate queue for Gold or Plus fliers, of course. I reckon I could have had at least two more drinks in the lounge, instead of having to wait at the airport gate in line.

I'm not sure if or why they are taking this non-US bound flight and doing it American style. They had an additional two passport checkers in addition to the people scanning your boarding pass who were checking your passport anyways. For all intents, once you are in the departure lounge you are "boarded" since there is no further BP scan. But they just keep you in there and still announce boarding by "zones" even if there is absolutely nobody to enforce boarding this at the actual walkway entrance to the jet bridge.

Absolutely awful and confusing boarding process. I was Zone 1, but ended up boarding with Zone 4 given I was stuck outside the departure gate and did not want to barge in front of already-upset and delayed passengers.



Oh look! A WestJet plane in London!



I really felt the 2-3-2 configuration in Y for this ex-QF 767 was very comfortable. The seat overall was comfortable, the exact same as the QF planes I think.

I was one of the very few with an empty seat next to me, if not the only one on the plane from a no-show. Despite this, a ground agent on board asked me to move from row 14H to 23F or whatever so that "a couple could sit together, one of whom had eyesight issues." (Why didn't they pay to choose seats together?) I'm usually a nice guy, but for me to go from an empty 2-seater to a seat 9 rows back, with a stranger beside me? Are you kidding? I said no. Unless you are upgrading me to Plus, or doing a forced operational move on me, don't bother asking.

Boarding was completed and we departed at 2:20pm, about 1.5 hours delayed.

Some flaws: the power outlet is USB-only, meaning all you power business fliers won't be using any laptops for this 10-hour flight.

The WestJet Connect wi-fi was surprisingly the same price as the domestic/transborder flights: $5 for 30 mins, $9 for 3 hours, $15 for a flight pass. I can't really remember the exact dollars on all my WestJet flights so I may be off a few dollars. I did wish that they did have a cheap "messaging pass" like Gogo does for $3 since most of my wi-fi use on planes is very low bandwidth. But on the wi-fi front, this is good. The only problem is the heavy polar routing in particular for some LGW-YVR flights, which might affect signal, and I am very happy that the staff did warn about this before people started purchasing.

Plus passengers get tablets, and WestJet also sells rentals for them.



The food. Oh dear lord the food.

The menu can be found here: https://www.westjet.com/assets/wj-we...Oct-EN-web.pdf

I ordered the "Tomato and tarragon chicken, Served with chive mashed potatoes and mixed vegetables." And it came out like this:



Now at C$9, it's not the most expensive meal, but I feel like this wasn't worth a penny. I understand WestJet wants to encourage people to preorder, but I was intending to upgrade to Plus and/or change flights, so that just doesn't work. Preordering is a special request tied to your flight.

If you preorder, which costs C$13+, you get a "free" on-arrival breakfast/snack in addition to sides and desserts for your main meal.

But for the rest of us non-preordering plebes, all you get is just a main meal. Which would be fine, but this was an awful dish. I highly recommend fliers bring their own food.

I talked to some YYC-based FAs from my flight at YVR Arrivals, and they told me that they even don't touch the food and just bring their own food on board.

Another problem with the buy-on-board is that similar to "domestic mainline" there is a delay between the free drink service, which everyone will agree to, and the for-purchase meals, which less than a quarter of people will agree to. Around me, most people did not order the WestJet food.

For those that purchased a meal, that means eating your meal without a beverage or waiting and having your food go cold.

Another problem is tray clearing: people eat quickly but the drink service lags. So my tray sat there uncleared for 2 hours or longer. (I went to nap and just left the tray on the empty seat's tray next to me.)

I napped through the rest of the service, but the on-arrival meal service is only cold plates. That means only cheese plates and sandwiches. I'm not sure why they can't be bothered to heat up food for the few that would want to order.

I overheard FAs chatting to some passengers and they have admitted they were "overcoming difficulties" on this route. One comment was that the passengers "were just so different". I mean, 10-hour transatlantic international vs average flight length of 2-3 for domestic/transborder/Caribbean attracting a different passenger mix? Could WestJet have really been surprised? Of course expectations are different.

Between the service hiccups, the delays, and the mediocre catering, I would not recommend their transatlantic service. They have had a whole year to sort these hiccups, and this was a flight at the end of their peak seasonal services and already into the shoulder season. It really feels that WestJet half-assed this international experiment, and it really shows. How can you possibly launch something like this and be proud of it? A sad story.