Review of Air Canada flight Tel Aviv → Toronto in Economy

introduction

Hello!
I always wanted to fly to Canada, in 2022 this dream came true and I visited Canada for the first time.
It was a wonderful trip, with 4 flights (TLV-YYZ, YYZ-YYC, YYC-YYZ, YYZ-TLV) with Air Canada, WestJet and Flair.
Canada is a beautiful country with very nice people, as well as some interesting planes (like the 737-200) and I hope to visit Canada again in the future!

I hope that you'll enjoy from this flight report about my flight from Tel Aviv to Toronto Pearson with Air Canada on economy class.

TLV AIRPORT - TERMINAL 3

I entered to the terminal, and saw long queues for the security and for the check in area.
I expected those long lines, since many people travel between the Jewish holidays (I flew before Sukkot).

After the check in process, I went to the hand baggage check, the queue was long there as well.
Please note, that since this was a flight in Friday, all the low cost flights departed from terminal 3, so the lines were even longer than usual.
As I said, I expected long waiting in the queues, since I traveled between the holidays.

My boarding pass:

And the queue again…

After 30-40 minutes of waiting, I finally finished the hand baggage security and the passport control processes and could go to the duty free area!

On the way to heaven :)

Ryanair Boeing 737-800 in terminal 3, not where you see them usually:

Duty free area:

Nothing changed since my last flight from terminal 3 (TLV-BCN in June 2022), but I like how this terminal designed.
The walking distances aren't too long, I never got lost and there are many shops and places to eat.

As usual, I went to review the toilets :)

It was ok, but could be cleaner.

It was the time to grab something to eat, since I had a very long flight (and as it turned out, our flight was delayed by an hour or so, so it was a good decision):

With some discount, I bought a slice of pizza and cold drink bottle for something like 30-40 ILS. Approximately 10$ USD. It wasn't cheap.

It was time to go to the gate area:

Since I had some spare time, I went to the duty free shop near the concourse.
It's a smaller shop, but it was nice and I found what I looked for.

The queue for the boarding was still there…

Another Air Canada Boeing 787 to Montreal:

I went to buy an overpriced cup of coffee:

The prices are in ILS, the coffee was nice, but nothing to write home about.

What can be better than coffee and plane spotting?

Finally, I was my turn to board the aircraft:

Aircraft information:
Boeing 787-9
C-FGEI
In service since March 2016,
Currently (February 2023) almost 7 years old, meaning it was approximately 6.5 years old when I flew on it.

FLIGHT EXPERIENCE - TLV TO YYZ

Business class:

Premium economy class:

And the view from my seat for this flight, 18K:

I paid for this preferred seat 100$ USD, but it was worth it.
The legroom was great:

Each seat has it's own ventilation nozzle:

Lot Boeing 737 with special color scheme taxing:

The gopro is ready :)

I opened the IFE, which installed between the seats:

As you can see, each screen equipped with USB charging point.
I was also surprised to see that the IFE has the Hebrew language.

Of course, I went with the flight map:

Taxi process started. Here we go…

The safety video (with Hebrew subtitles):

More photos during taxi:
Elal Boeing 787-9:

Arkia Embraer ERJ-195AR:

Crossing runway 30/12:

The graveyard of TLV airport, two ex Elal Boeing 747-400 (4X-ELC and 4X-ELH) and Elal Boeing 777 (which stored currently).

Take off video:

V1, rotate:

Shortly after take off:

Food menu for this flight:

One hour into the flight, the crew served us a lunch:

I chose the pasta option, the lunch served with pearl barley and pepper salad, bread, butter and bottle of water.
I think that for such long flight, the lunch was too small. It tasted OK, but nothing out of the ordinary.
Sure, it wasn't the worst meal I ever ate on an aircraft, but not the best one for sure.

Wing view, 2 hours into the flight:

I also went to the toilet in the middle on the economy class cabin, and found them huge!

It was clean as expect.

Cabin view during flight:

Flying over Romania:

On this stage (2-3 hours into the flight) I tried to sleep, but as usual, I couldn't.
So I tried the Wifi onboard, which worked fine almost all the flight, except when crossed the Atlantic, the internet was very slow. As soon as we flew over land, the internet worked fine again.

6 hours into the flight, I received small sandwich and a chocolate cookie:

Both the sandwich and the cookie were tasty, but small.

Getting close to Canada…

2 hours before landing, the crew served us a meal:

This meal included beef, mushed potatoes, butter, fruit salad, bread and a bottle of water.
The beef was tasty but the mushed potatoes had some bad taste in my opinion. The fruit salad was OK.
Again, nothing special about this meal. It was small as well.

Over Canada:

Getting ready for the landing…

Thrust reverse deployed!

The landing was very smooth! One of the best landing I ever experienced in my life!

YYZ airport after landing:

Wing view in the gate:

Cabin view during deboarding:

I hope to try the premium economy class in my next flight to Canada. It looks very nice and small.

Air Canada Boeing 777:

YYZ AIRPORT - TERMINAL 1

On my way to the passport control and the baggage claim area:

The passport control process was very different, almost fully automated, I only asked to give some paper to the officer in the passport control area and tell her why I visit Canada.

Baggage claim area:

I waited 15-20 minutes for my baggage. I expected to find it there, since I already walked a lot in the airport, as well as waited in the passport control area.

Last visit in the toilets:

Not so clean, could be cleaner. TLV airport toilets were cleaner.

I hope that you enjoyed my flight report!
Soon, I'll post my flight reports about the flight in Canada (YYZ-YYC and YYC-YYZ) and the flight with Air Canada back to TLV.