Review of Air Transat flight Toronto Montreal in Economy

Airline Air Transat
Flight TS411
Class Economy
Seat 8K
Aircraft Airbus A321
Flight time 01:20
Take-off 03 Apr 23, 18:00
Arrival at 03 Apr 23, 19:20
TS 56 reviews
Lia_K
By SILVER 912
Published on 29th May 2023

one last hop


Hey guys and welcome to another Flight Report!

This FR will be the penultimate one for my trip to Canada and will be my last domestic flight before I fly back to Europe from Montreal. There really isn't any reason why I chose Air Transat other than the fact that they were the cheapest option for me at around CA$95 (~€65/US$70) including seat selection. I didn't pay for checked luggage for this flight and a cabin bag is included along with an under-seat bag.



From 2023, I aim to offset all of my CO2 emission from flights. All emissions are calculated using the ICAO Carbon Emissions Calculator and I will be funding projects approved by The Gold Standard. The CO2 output for this flight is:

YYZ-YUL: 68kg
Total for 2023 (so far): 1447kg


Toronto pearson Airport (yyz)


Because I had stuff to do earlier in the day, I only arrived at the airport around 2 hours before departure (like most people). This meant that I didn't get to take as many photos as I would've normally. However, it doesn't really matter as I've flown out of Pearson Terminal 3 earlier in my trip so I'd probably end up taking the same photos again anyway. If you'd like to have a more in-depth look into the airport, check out my Porter review here!

Like last time, the bus dropped me off in Terminal 1 so I had to get the free train to Terminal 3, where Air Transat flights depart from.

View from the station.


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The station itself.


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The check-in area.


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The Air Transat check-in desks are right at the end of the building, near domestic/non-US departures. As you can see, there weren't any queues for check-in however there were some confusion as I used the self-service check-in kiosks which didn't print a boarding pass for some reason. This meant that I had to go to the counter anyway.


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Security was, once again, very efficient. There's much less people in the evening compared to the morning so I was through in under 10 minutes.

A view of the gates where our flight would depart from.


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View of the apron from the gates, including 2 A330s of Air Transat and Aer Lingus parked at the C gates.


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Another photo of the apron, Toronto is really nice for planespotting.


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View from the other side of the pier.


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the flight


While the airport is good for planespotting, it wasn't for our plane as it was parked right at the end of the pier. This is the best photo I can get sadly.


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However, I was (once again) fortunate enough to photograph the plane during my planespotting session in Montreal a day later. So here's a much better photo of her:


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Some info about our plane:

Type: Airbus A321
Registration: C-GEZX
First flight: 2 August 2016
Age: ~7 years

First delivered to the now defunct WOW Air, she flew for the Icelandic carrier until their demise in 2019. The plane was then set to go to British carrier Thomas Cook as G-TCDS but was never delivered as Thomas Cook also ceased operations in late 2019. Finally, she was delivered to Air Transat in November 2019 while retaining her yellow engines to this day. 


Flight time today will be under an hour and here is our route:


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Air Transat's seats:


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The tray table and seat-back pockets.


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The legroom - actually really, really good. One of the best I've had. 


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All the seats recline, which is nice.


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There is also a pair of USB ports in front of each seat.


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View out the window.


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Pushback around 10 minutes late.


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Taxiing past all the heavies.


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A Turkish Airlines Boeing 777-300ER (TC-JJS) arriving from Istanbul (IST)


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Taking off from runway 24R. Bye bye Ontario!


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Good views of Mississauga and Brampton on takeoff.


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A right turn brings over Lake Ontario.


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Climbing through the clouds.


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Immediately after takeoff, the crew came around with drinks. I went with apple juice.


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The 2 cup wedges are a really nice feature!


Let's have a look at the contents of the seat-back pocket. It includes:

- A safety card


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- An air-sickness bag


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- A menu


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Air Transat offers a BOB service for flights over an hour long.


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Fairly thick clouds over Ontario today.


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Air Transat also offers an IFE system that is available on your phone after connecting to their Wi-Fi.


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With it being a short flight, I only got a quick glance at everything. It looks like there's a fairly decent selection of TV shows, movies and games available. It's definitely enough for a short flight across North America.




There is also an inflight map available, which wasn't working for my flight.


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The menu is also available to view online.


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Starting our descent into Montreal.


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Over the Lake of Two Mountains.


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Great views of the area surrounding Montreal.


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View of Montreal Trudeau airport from the air.


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Over the Greater Montreal area.


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Another view of the airport. If you look really carefully, you'll see another plane on final on the bottom right.


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Over Downtown Monreal with a sunset in the background.


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Our approach involved a loop over Downtown, which gave us some really nice views.


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Over the St Lawrence River.


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Finally, welcome to Montreal! We landed around 20 minutes late.


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Parked next to an Air Canada A330.


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Montreal trudeau airport (yul)


Like with all airports, arriving domestic passengers are deposited inside the departures area.


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The baggage reclaim area.


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The arrivals area on the ground floor.


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That concludes my last domestic flight in Canada. My next (and final) FR in this series will cover the long-haul flight back to Europe, see you there!


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Verdict

Air Transat

8.5/10
Cabin10.0
Cabin crew7.0
Entertainment/wifi8.5
Meal/catering8.5

Toronto - YYZ

9.4/10
Efficiency10.0
Access9.0
Services9.0
Cleanliness9.5

Montreal - YUL

8.3/10
Efficiency9.0
Access7.0
Services7.5
Cleanliness9.5

Conclusion

A really nice flight with Air Transat. Seats were really good with amazing legroom, cabin crew was friendly and the complimentary drink is really nice for such a short flight. Overall, would definitely recommend them for longer flights to the Carribean and US.

Toronto Pearson Airport - once again, the airport was efficient and nice, especially with less people in the evening compared to the morning. Good selections of shops and restaurants airside and easy connections to Downtown and the surrounding area.

Montreal Trudeau Airport - a nice airport to fly into. Not as modern or as clean as Toronto Pearson in my opinion but does its job well. No complaints really.

Information on the route Toronto (YYZ) Montreal (YUL)

Les contributeurs de Flight-Report ont posté 19 avis concernant 4 compagnies sur la ligne Toronto (YYZ) → Montreal (YUL).


Useful

La compagnie qui obtient la meilleure moyenne est Air Canada avec 7.5/10.

La durée moyenne des vols est de 1 heures et 11 minutes.

  More information

6 Comments

If you liked this review or if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to post a comment below !
  • Comment 629060 by
    LeMatheuxVoyageur BRONZE 846 Comments
    Hi and thank you for the sharing ! Despite the hard competition on this route, TS's product seems to be successful. That is quite surprising that this airplane has two yellow engines... This airplane had a quite complecated history... See you on the journey's final part !
    • Comment 629107 by
      Lia_K SILVER AUTHOR 66 Comments
      Hi! Yeah, I'm a huge fan of TS especially on this route as they're consistantly cheaper than their competitors whilst offering a very decent service, although I'm quite surprised no LCCs fly the route. And yeah, the yellow engines do look quite odd at first but I'm starting to like it now as a quirk of the plane.

      Thanks for reading!
  • Comment 629182 by
    Loouri SILVER 658 Comments
    Hi and merci for the sharing !

    A strong product from Air Transat. There is no reason to pay more and choose Air Canada. I do like the two yellow engines, it gives a nice look to the plane.

    Tremendous pics of the arrival in Montreal. I'm surprised there is snow in Montreal whilst there is no in Toronto. I heard Toronto's weather is less snowy and coldy than Montreal one, but I didnt know that much.
    See you & bon voyage!
    • Comment 629339 by
      Lia_K SILVER AUTHOR 66 Comments
      Hi! Thanks for reading!

      There was quite lot of snow in Montreal when I was there (actually had to walk through a small snow storm on my 2nd day), but most of it would've melted by this point in the trip. Also yes, Toronto is consistantly warmer than Montreal, although not by a lot (3-4 degrees) but it's enough to melt the snow at that time of the year.

      Thanks again.
  • Comment 630103 by
    KévinDC TEAM SILVER 6768 Comments
    Hi Lia, nice to see the continuation of your Canadian adventures! It's really cool to see a report on Air Transat as there are so few on the English site. It's really one of those hidden little gems of North American airlines. As you point out, the cabin is very spacious as Air Transat have one of the least dense A321 configurations out there with only 189-199 seats, vs the typical 220 all-Y configuration of most LCCs/Holiday carriers.

    Between the great legroom, in-seat, power, and Streaming entertainment, this is one of the best short-haul Economy experiences on a North American carrier. The BOB menu also looks pretty decent. I also really like their livery and your planespotting pics are gorgeous as usual!

    Thanks for sharing!
    • Comment 630399 by
      Lia_K SILVER AUTHOR 66 Comments
      Hi Kevin. It really is surprising how little Air Transat's product is talked about, especially considering how good they are. It's probably because a lot of people (me included) automatically group these leisure carriers in the same category as LCCs, which is fair in Europe but definitely not for NA. Made this flight even more of a surprise for me though.

      Thanks for reading!

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