Airports in North America are about as useful as Paris Hilton is to the world: lacking substance, a lot of non-sense and tacky, but it gets the job done. However, I was pleasantly surprised on a recent flight out of Toronto’s Billy Bishop Airport to Montréal – giving this part of the world some hope.
Also known as Toronto’s city airport, it’s located on a tiny island south of downtown Toronto only accessible via ferry. An underground tunnel linking the island airport to the mainland is under construction and is expected to complete by Winter 2014/2015.
I’ll let the pictures do most of the talking, but I blame the poor quality of the photos on my excitement…
Entrance to the ferry terminal on the mainland
Waiting area – sort of like the more modern version of Hong Kong’s Star Ferry pier
Air Canada’s check-in kiosks
Porter’s check-in kiosks with its business savvy customers
Ok let’s pause here for a bit. YTZ is Porter’s hub airport, with the only competing airline being Air Canada. My fellow classmate who works at Air Canada told me how their operations at YTZ are literally bleeding money for the airline and you’ll see why shortly. They are keeping their flights to maintain slots in hope to drive out Porter Airlines.
During my 10 minute Uber ride over, my driver was so shocked that I was flying Air Canada and not Porter today (reason: frequent flier miles with AC). Aside from it’s onboard service (they serve everything with proper glassware and have proper gourmet sandwiches), I was told that Porter attracts ‘better looking’ business savvy people – whereas Air Canada gets all the drunk white folk!
Boarding the ferry!
Onboard ferry for the quick 5-minute hop over
Looking towards the terminal
With a view of downtown Toronto
Check-in area: it’s not a frenzied mess and no announcements every 10 seconds… It’s like a 5 star luxury spa compared to LAX!
This is the view as you past security to the first class lounge departure hall – I was so excited I nearly fell down the escalator!
Business centre with iMacs (and a very hungry man eating all the free food)
Starbucks coffee
Free soda wohoo!
OK so here is the best part of the trip. Shortly prior to boarding, Porter announced a massive delay to its flight bound for Montréal which was originally scheduled to depart at the same time as my Air Canada flight. The delay was almost 1.5x longer than the actual flying time itself (1 hour), this meant pissed off passengers! As the minority (Air Canada) on the winning side (AC flight was only slightly delayed), this was how I was feeling inside (yes I’m a horrible person):
Then the real fun began…
Porter ground crew at its glitzy base trying to resolve the situation…
Porter announcement: “We regret to inform Porter passengers that your flight to Montréal has been delayed due to the late inbound aircraft”.
…meanwhile this lonely Air Canada agent took it upon herself to announce: “Air Canada is pleased to advised the on-time departure of flight AC 7530 and we will shortly be boarding through gate 1. We wish you a pleasant flight.”
Porter: “For those passengers on the delayed service to Montréal, please contact the ground crew to be re-booked free of charge to the first flight tomorrow morning.”
Air Canada: “Air Canada is pleased to advised the on-time departure of…”
This back and forth kept going on, and on, and on… It is borderline hysterical just how much these two airlines love each other!!
The flight itself paled in comparison to the airport drama. Seen here boarding the Bombardier Q400 jet. Note this guy was suppose to valet check his bag but the crew told him to just bring it onboard and you’ll find out later why…
These are Air Canada’s preferred exit seats which you can pay extra for, not that much extra legroom and no under seat stowage in front… No thanks!
View of the Toronto skyline upon taxiing for takeoff… yea was a shitty day
View of the cabin from behind
View of the cabin towards the back of the aircraft. You see that guy there looking puzzled? Well for good reason, our flight had a grand total of SEVEN passengers!! Capacity is 74 passengers so that’s a whopping 9% load factor – go Air Canada! We had 2 attendants so that’s a crew to passenger ratio of 1:3.5, if you included the pilot and co-pilot, we might as well have had a private jet!!
Air Canada has done such a good job marketing this route that they even have a separate in-flight magazine dedicated to this route! I took a copy for myself to share with friends as it clearly wasn’t going to be appreciated by enough of its own passengers!
Flying through the misty skies
On approach with downtown Montréal in the distance
Touchdown!
The Asian Nomad 