British Expats - I'm good to go already!!!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by HGerchikov (Post 11334585)

I always fly Air Transat, and have always found the food to be quite good. Flew back from Paris yesterday, and we were commenting how impressive it is that they manage to serve the food so hot. Decent amount of leg room, individual TVs with a good choice of movies, documentaries and TV shows, overall a good experience, and definitely the cheapest option at the moment.

When I flew AT in January on my one-way moving flight back here, the food was good - agree on your comment that they get it piping hot! - and the selection of movies and programs on the refurbished planes is really great. The screen is quite big, the touch sensor is way more responsive than AC's, and the selection was quite good considering they're a budget charter airline!

I should also point out, the day that I flew LGW to YYZ was the day that there was a huge snowstorm in Toronto - that doesn't narrow it down, haha, but flights were affected. My flight was also rather a comedy of errors.

1) The plane was flying Toronto > Gatwick > Toronto. The incoming flight out of Toronto was delayed about 5 hours because of the weather.

2) When the plane finally had clearance to take off 5 hours later, someone on the plane got sick as they were taxiing. The plane had to turn around and go back to the gate.

3) On the way back to the gate, a second passenger got sick.

4) Both those passengers were de-planed, and their luggage had to be removed from the plane.

5) Two more passengers were ejected from the flight after getting particularly cross about the delay. They luggage also had to be removed from the plane.

6) By the time the plane was able to take off again, the flight crew did not have enough on-duty hours left to make it to London. Instead of waiting more at Pearson for another crew to arrive, AT decided to dispatch another crew to Montreal instead, and the plane crew would change in Montreal.

7) Good plan, in theory. The plane landed in Montreal, the crew was changed, and then a snowstorm hit and the plane was delayed another 3 hours.

8) Finally the plane was cleared to go, and made its way to Gatwick.

9) Plane landed, plane cleaned, plane restocked, etc etc, all great. Finally get called to the gate. Because of the delays, some passengers spent their time hitting it pretty hard at the bar. AT and Gatwick management is milling about, giving some people warnings, and trying to keep a very tired and grumpy group of passengers in order.

10) Board the plane. Lots of very drunk and belligerent passengers. One pair says something particularly derogatory to a flight attendant. Both passengers are ejected from the flight. Their baggage has to be removed from the plane. This takes about 45 minutes.

11) The plane finally takes off for an uneventful flight back to Toronto.

(All times GMT)
My arrival at Gatwick: 07:00
Original scheduled flight departure: 09:00
Number of scheduled delays: 4
Scheduled final departure: 23:59 (they are not allowed to schedule flights between 00:00 and 06:00)
Actual takeoff time: 01:15
Landing at YYZ: 04:30 EST (Husband loved picking me up... our car's temperature gate read a balmy -29C.)

I luckily had lounge access, so I spent my 17 hour delay on my own in a lounge watching movies on Netflix and drinking G&T.

AT was really great through all of this, though. They were open with sharing what had happened and why the plane was delayed, the current status of things, and I ended up with about Â£35 worth of food vouchers that could be used anywhere in the airport. I used Â£20 in the lounge on food there, and then bought some airport workers dinner around 23:30 at McDonalds once everything else had closed (they don't give you change from the vouchers, and I wasn't going to eat Â£15 worth of McDonald's, which was the only thing open at 23:30!).

And that was my ridiculous flight experience. Kudos to AT for handling it so well. :)