October 2, 2017
The day again started with breakfast. Afterwards I checked out and my friend and me walked to the terminal. With only OLCI working the day before, I went to the counter to get my boarding passes. I had issues with my passport not being read by the OLCI machine. Security fast lane wasn't really fast, but at least faster than the conventional lanes.
I used the waiting time for some more plane spotting, mainly
ancient aircraft.
What I wasn't knowing that moment that we would outrun the Air Transat A310. My flight was operated by
Boarding started on time and in zones. With zone 1 I was able to quickly board. I couldn't wait to see my seat.
Although you don't see much, some of you may feel this is familiar. Just think about the seats Lufthansa is using for their domestic/intra-Europe cabin. This is the very same seat, with the addition of a power outlet.
My flight, WS 31 GLA - YHZ, 737-700 C-GMWJ, 09:48 - 11:52 am departed on time. It was completely full with unusually high average age of the passengers. Many of them seemed to be Canadians.
After takeoff towards the west, Barra or the Outer Hebrides wasn't visible due to the clouds. I had booked a Plus fare, which included a seat with additional legroom, included meal and free choice of beverages. With a morning flight, breakfast was served.
IFE was free of charges over wifi, if you had pre-loaded the WestJet app. I enjoyed the flight map and flight infos, where you could freely zoom and pan the flight map. Unfortunately, there wasn't much to see outside (clouds).
Clouds were only clearing off close to our arrival. This again nicely illuminated the beautiful landscape. We were also casting a shadow, well, just a very small one.
After landing in YHZ, everybody had to deplane and enter Canada. After that I directly went to the security checkpoint, because there was a second part of flight WS 31: WS 31 YHZ - YYZ, same aircraft, 13:32 - 14:27 pm. Aircraft was the same but flight and cabin crew was different.
After takeoff, beverages were served and a selection from the snack menu. I opted for the tapas box.
Some time before landing, we reached Lake Ontario.
Although the weather was really nice, we turned to a northern direction much too early, so I could only get a glimpse of the Niagara Falls.
Toronto was nicely sitting in sun. If you watch closely, you can see a Porter aircraft approaching Toronto City airport. With such views, I can never understand, why somebody want's to have an aisle seat.
Toronto Pearson airport was also visible during our downwind. For some reason, the wing and engine also wanted to be part of the picture.
Arrival in Toronto was almost on time, at gate A6 in a satellite building of terminal 3. I just followed signs to US connections. With an empty security, it only took seconds to pass that. After that, GE kiosks were waiting for me. So all in all, it took 20 minutes from gate arrival to entering the US. Well, this time, GE was not much of a help, security and immigration lines were empty.
At the gate we had to wait for the inbound flight from Calgary. Unfortunately, the flight crew was coming from Calgary as well, but on a different flight. The reason for the delays was snow in Calgary. Lucky me, I wasn't going to Calgary, I hadn't packed for snow. My last flight for the day was WS 1210 YYZ - LGA, Boeing 737-800 C-GZWS, 16:47 - 17:44 pm. While waiting for this flight, I spotted the Air Transat A310, which finally also made it from GLA over the pond.
With WS 1210 being a rather short flight, meal and beverage options were limited. For me it was water with the snack.
The flight was routed over Lake Ontario with a nice view towards Toronto (I was sitting on the wrong side), Niagara Falls (wrong side), Rochester and continued to Upstate New York. Approach towards LaGuardia was from the north, so I couldn't see much of New York. The following picture shows the
Throgs Neck Bridge on the left and the
Bronx-Whitestone Bridge on the right. Too bad, I again was sitting on the wrong side to see
Rikers Island.
Before my trip I bought a US SIM, which I put in my mobile phone during flight. I was curious to see the phone booking into the cellular network. Surprisingly, this worked smoothly, so I would have mobile data while in the US. After arriving, I called the hotel for the shuttle. Because of the bad line, my tiredness and my German accent, I was skeptical if this would work out. After some time I spotted the shuttle, so it did work out.
For the night I stayed at the Best Western Plus LaGuardia Airport. The hotel is Corona/Queens close to the
111th Street metro station.
Although I was tired, I had get one of the best burgers in town for dinner. To get there, I took the 7 and E train to Lower Manhatten, Station
Canal Street. After a short time, I found my destination:
I ordered the Blue Burger with a second patty, but without the delicious Curly Fries. I had to apply some additional pressure to ensure the tower lasted until the photo was taken.
After finishing the burger, I got back to the hotel. I started typing the German trip report, but fall asleep. I woke up much too early and long before the alarm clock. Well, this could get tiresome for the remainder of the trip, with all the jumps through the various time zones.
I was curious to fly WestJet and it was one of the best options for crossing the Atlantic. If I had known beforehand that they were using the same seats as LH, I would have had doubts about my plan. Plus fares offer included checked luggage, more legroom seats and additional recline, blocked middle seat and priority/fast lane. You also get an inflight meal and open bar drinks. WS 737 aircraft don't have an oven on board, so there are only cold meal options (breakfast for early morning flights or choice of salat or sandwich). According to a flight attendant, this will change with the new 737MAX.
If you have the WS app, you get IFE with free movies and TV series. I did enjoy the flight map. You can also rent tablets on board. Seeing a power outlet for every seat is nice, something LH should offer on there aircraft as well (same seats). Well, with the A320neo or the 180 seats A320ceo, the probably would have to look for another position of the power outlet, to not further reduce seat pitch.
The flights themselves were uneventful and on time. There were no turbulences due fall winds and no weather related delays. Hence all flights completed as planned.