Welcome to my first trip report!
Flight routing
- 1Toronto (YYZ) - New York (LGA)
- 2New York (JFK) - Hong Kong (HKG)
- 3Hong Kong (HKG) - Colombo (CMB)
- 4Colombo (CMB) - Male (MLE)
- 5Male (MLE) - Colombo (CMB)
- 6Colombo (CMB) - Doha (DOH)
- 7Doha (DOH) - Muscat (MCT)
- 8Muscat (MCT) - Dubai (DXB)
- 9Dubai (DXB) - Cairo (CAI)
- 10Cairo (CAI) - New York (JFK)
- 11New York (JFK) - Toronto (YYZ)
booking
While I could have booked this trip with Aeroplan miles in J, the taxes were quite outrageous (as one would expect when booking with Aeroplan on AC metal). Thankfully, a quick Google flights search turned up flights just under $400 in J, so I went ahead and booked that.
getting to the airport, checkin, and security
After arriving at the airport, went straight to check in. Check in lines were not lengthy on this Thursday afternoon, but there was a wait at pre-clearance because of the several afternoon US departures. Between security and clearance, we were air side in about 30 minutes.
AIR canada maple leaf lounge transborder
We visited the transborder AC maple leaf lounge. It was very busy during our visit due to the several US departures. It is located right after security and customs.
Lounge reception
Phone charging area
Departure board and literature
The lounge has a couple of these private desks where some work can get done.
Fresh fruit and infused water was available in the lounge. The buffer selection was quite slim. Hot food consisted of soup, and only soup. There was a good drink selection.
Boarding
Boarding began at 2pm, with priorities enforced. Zone one was called first, and I was about fifth in line. Zone one and two were boarded together.
Cabin and seat
March 5th 2020
Air Canada
AC714
Toronto to Newark
A320-200
C-FGYL
Business Class
Air Canada's A320's are in a 2-2 configuration in business and 3-3 in economy.
This A320-200's J cabin with 14 seats
A peak into the 132 seat economy cabin.
The seat is quite wide and despite it's antique appearance, it was in great condition.
The footrest was not exactly functional, as it wen't all the way down when I put my feet on it. Legroom was great. At this point, the flight attendant greeted passengers by name and offered Naya water bottles as the pre-departure beverage.
Post departure
AC 787 besides us
PIA 777 in the distance
Meal service was served about 20 minutes into the flight. The options were a smoked salmon potato salad, or some sort of egg dish. By the time they reached me, they were out of the salmon, disappointingly.
The dish was quite good, and the mayonnaise gave it a lot of flavour.
The IFE had a good selection of newer movies.
Passport stamp received in Toronto
Anyone know what airport this is?
The landing in LGA was very smooth. We had to wait about fifteen minutes for a gate to open up since we arrived quite early.
post-landing
After we landed, I realized I left my passport in the plane, so the staff went and fetched it for me. By the time I got to baggage claim, our luggage's were waiting there for us.
Westchester County (HPN).
(Yes, I cheated)
Hi Shayaan, thanks for sharing your first report here with us! You did a great job for a first report--with good details and coverage of the whole flight experience and just the right amount of pics. The only tips I would have to offer is that pics in landscape mode look best on the site and text is best above the pic as it makes it easier to read as you scroll down. Other than that, you definitely have the Flight-Reporter's instinct :-)
AC is one of the better North American carriers. IFE and a cold meal on a 1h flight is definitely better than what you'd typically get on a US carrier. Not a fan of the look of the seat covers, but the seats look comfortable. I see there was a USB port for each seat, was there also a normal power outlet?
Thanks for sharing and Welcome to Flight-Report!
One more quick thing...whenever there are recognisable faces in your reviews, go ahead and blur them. Though different countries have different laws about this, it's best just to blur them out to avoid potential privacy issues. We have a blurring tool inside the publisher for your convenience, thanks! (p.s. I went ahead and blurred for you this time)
Thanks for reading my flghtreport, and for your feedback. Will blur the people in my other flight report as well. The seat also had a normal power outlet, which was universal!