Originally Posted by KathrynInCanada

Flight report: YOW-YHZ August 18, YHZ-YOW August 25 (with comments on YTZ-YUL-YHZ)

Purpose of trip: Annual family vacation, with family coming from Ottawa and Waterloo, meeting at YHZ and then moving on to a resort on the South Shore.

Pros:

* Legroom
* Comfortable seats
* friendly, helpful staff
* Price (although AC eventually came close enough in price I would have flown them had I waited but I didn't want to miss the Porter Seat Sale.)
* Fewer Carbon emmissions (for those who care.)
* Saved my Waterloo kids $150 in airport transfers since they can take Greyhound to YTZ.
* 'Lounge' access for my Waterloo kids in Toronto (since they aren't with us they don't get into the Maple Leaf lounge at YYZ)
* lots of staff at check in at YHZ (at least three stations open) so the 'long' line (about 12 people) moved quickly.
* good communication about the delayed flight.

Cons:

* No lounge in either YOW or YHZ. I was actually surprised at how much I missed a lounge and it made me appreciate my *Gold membership. At least Halifax has free wireless throughout. Paid $20 for food that would have been free at the MLL.)
* inconvenient schedule for us (the Waterloo kids couldn't easily catch the YTZ-YOW-YHZ flight so we'd all be together. Thus they flew through Montreal, arrived 4+ hours after us and left 1.5 hours before us. I can time AC flights to arrive and leave close to each other.)
* counter staff can only handle one flight at a time. We all arrived at YHZ at 10:30 to check the Waterloo kids into the YHZ-YUL-YTZ 11:30 flight. Counter staff wanted us to wait until 11:30 to check in for our 13:15 YHZ-YOW flight because they couldn't take our checked baggage before then (it might end up on the 11:30 flight.) We wanted to check in at the same time as the Waterloo kids so we could all wait together at the gate (and have a light lunch together) so the counter staff ended up checking us in, but holding our baggage at the counter until 11:30. The kids' flight was delayed so it did give us more time together.
* I walked through YHZ 'sterile' zone carrying several knives on the 18th. My small checked bag containing sharp knives was mistaken for carry-on and brought up with the gate checked bags. I picked it up along with my gate checked bag (luckily I had one so stopped on the jetway to wait for that). At first I waited for my second checked bag thinking all checked bags were picked up there. Was told I was to go to the baggage area so left with my carry-on and one checked bag. Stopped at the bathroom and at that point realized I had contraband and headed out to the baggage area as fast as I could. No harm, no foul, and just human error but it annoyed me. I don't like careless mistakes.
* I found the planes noisy. The Waterloo kids' flights were so rough and they were so air sick they debated taking AC back. Haven't heard how their return flights went. But they don't want to fly Porter again.
* lots of babies and small kids. Didn't bother me but they were noisy flights from that point-of-view too.
* Porter's website is screwy on the arrival times. We had driven into Bedford for lunch while waiting for the Waterloo kids to arrive and used internet to check the arrival time of the YTZ-YUL-YHZ flight. The page showed: Scheduled arrival time 16:30, Revised Arrival, 16:20, and Status: arrived. But this was at 16:10. We rushed back out to the airport arriving there are 16:30. The monitors showed the flight due at 16:30 and on-time, not early as the website had led us to believe. I checked today and the website is currently showing a flight not due in for an hour as arrived so there is a problem with their website.