Review of Air Canada Express flight from Toronto to New York in Economy

【 A happy ending 】

Hello and welcome to another Flight Report (FR)!! 

This is FR number 4 of my Spring 2026 trip and is the 2nd leg of my journey from Halifax to New York via Toronto. If you've read the first FR on WestJet, you'll know that this flight should've been with Delta in Business class (or Domestic First, as they call it). Clearly, that didn't happen. It's a long story how I ended up on Air Canada, so I'll go through everything when it comes up. Let's get to it! ;)

I aim to offset all of my CO2 emissions from flights. All emissions are calculated using the ICAO Carbon Emissions Calculator and I will be funding projects approved by The Gold Standard.

【 Business as normal 】

I'm starting the story in Terminal 3, preparing to fly with Delta to NYC. 

You join me in the check-in area of Terminal 3. I just hopped off my flight from Halifax on WestJet. All passengers transiting to the USA are required to return to the check-in area, essentially going through the same steps as non-transiting people. 

Departures for the morning. It's pretty hard to see, but you can see that our flight (DL5447 to New York LGA at 10:19) is currently shown as being delayed to 10:42 - a pretty minor delay. 

Immigration and security took around 15 minutes, with ~10 minutes spent in the immigration queue. For those unaware, most Canadian airports have US preclearance. It means that you go through US immigration here and therefore, all flights to the country are treated as domestic. Most Canadian airports have this (hence why passengers to the US are segregated from others), along with limited international airports like Dublin and Shannon in Ireland. 

Photo of the duty-free area. 

A tiny food court is available. 

Honestly, the whole area is pretty small and cramped. 

Photo of gate A10… which will be important later. 

【 Disaster 】

It was at this point that I checked Flighty out of boredom… and discovered that my flight got cancelled!! This is confirmed on the departure board. 

Hurrying to the gate to figure out what's going on. 

I rushed to gate A6… just in time to hear the announcement that they are rerouting passengers at the counter in gate A10… where I was just moments earlier!!! If I had known, I would've stayed put and been the first in line. ;(

【 Chaos 】

So I waited around 15 minutes. In that time, I discovered that the cancellation was caused by the unfortunate accident involving Air Canada 8646 at LaGuardia a week ago. AC8646 was a flight from Montreal that collided with a fire truck on the runway, resulting in the death of both pilots. While the runway on which the accident occurred opened 3 days ago, LGA is still operating at reduced capacity. Checking Flighty, it appeared that 4 flights between YYZ and LGA were cancelled today, with all other flights after 7 am arriving late. 

When I got to the front of the queue, the agent informed me that the earliest flights available were at 6 pm to LGA or JFK, 8 hours later. All earlier flights are full. I actually had an appointment in New York at 3 pm as well as a flight tomorrow at 7 am from JFK. Because I didn't want to risk getting stuck here in Toronto (and I wanted to make my appointment), I opted to get a refund for this flight and book the 1 pm Air Canada flight to JFK separately, which had seats available. 

Annoyingly, the agent actually forgot to tell the ground crew to return my checked luggage (even though they told me it'll be returned in 10-15 mins). I waited in the baggage reclaim area for 15 minutes with no idea where my bag was. Eventually, one of the (very kind) security guards spotted me wandering around aimlessly and came to help. She informed me that the Delta desks are upstairs next to check-in, and that if I came back to her with my boarding pass, I'd be allowed to return to baggage reclaim after talking to the Delta agent upstairs. 

So I went to the agent, who finally called someone and asked for my bag to be sent to baggage reclaim. However, there was more confusion as they also told me to go to WestJet to double-check that my bag had indeed been handed over to Delta. So, after another bit of walking, I did, and it was. It didn't help that no one knew where my bag would come out. The WestJet agent told me it would show up in oversized luggage, one of the Delta guys said it would be on belt 2, while another guy said belt 1. It basically meant that I had to run around the baggage reclaim area like a lunatic trying to find my bag among all the others scattered about. After 20 minutes, I eventually spotted my bag to my (and probably the security guard's) relief, on belt 1. 

It was probably the most stressful 40 minutes I've ever had while travelling… I was so concerned with getting my bag amongst all the conflicting information that I didn't take any photos of the process - my mind was occupied with much more important stuff, I hope you'd understand. 

【 Here we go again 】

Anyway, having calmed down a bit after that, we can resume the photo taking! Here's Terminal 1 where Air Canada operates out of. I had to get a free shuttle here from T3 where the Delta chaos happened. 

Another photo of the departure board, but for Terminal 1 this time. 

It was at this point that I felt confident enough to buy the ticket for the 13:20 flight. It cost me another CA$404 ($292, €250) to get the ticket 2 hours in advance. It actually wasn't as bad as I was expecting, although my original ticket from Halifax to New York only cost me CA$396 in business class. 

I got a refund from Delta for CA$150, so this flight only cost me CA$254. It's still a lot but could've been much worse. 

Going through security and US immigration (again) took me around 20 minutes. I'm just so exhausted at this point I just wanna head to the gate and pray that this flight doesn't get cancelled (it shouldn't since JFK flights are operating as normal). 

Photo of the gate. 

Our flight is departing out of gate F98, which involves going down this jetbridge-like walkway. 

And here we are!

Not the most aesthetically pleasing airport, but it isn't crowded unlike Terminal 3. 

View of the apron with an United Express Embraer E175 heading to Washington (IAD).

And here's our plane arriving from Boston (BOS).

Some information about our plane:

Type: Embraer E175
Registration: C-FUJE
First flight: December 2009
Age: ~17 years
Config: C12/Y64

A standard Embraer E175 that was originally delivered to Azul before joining Air Canada Express in November 2015. 

【 Finally flying! 】

Flight time to New York will be under 90 minutes, and here's our route:

Boarding on time with a photo of the IFE (which doesn't work) and tray table. There's also a USB port for charging, although I didn't test to see if it was working or not (I doubt it). 

This Air Canada Express/Jazz Embraer E175 is equipped with 64 economy seats in a 2-2 configuration. Row pitch is 31" except for rows 12-14, which have 34". Seat width is 18", and recline is 6". 

This is the first time I've seen IFE on a regional plane like the E175, although as I mentioned, it's not working. I can't imagine why you'd even install it on a plane that's only gonna be flying 2-3 hour flights max (although it seemed to be a thing in NA, at least in the past). 

These older seats are so much comfier than the modern ironing-board seats. It's got tons of padding, pretty good legroom (for a regional jet), and the 2-2 configuration on the Embraers is amazing. Yeah, these seats are probably some of the oldest flying around, but that actually makes it one of the best. 

View out of the window. 

Pushback on time. 

Taxiing past Terminal 3 with an Air Transat Airbus A330 heading to Cancun (CUN) and a KLM Boeing 787 heading to Amsterdam (AMS). 

Finally, takeoff!! I love you Canada… but I've never been so relieved to be leaving. 

Reaching our cruising altitude. 

Let's have a look at the contents of the seatback pocket. It includes an air sickness bag (not pictured), a safety card…

… a guide on the onboard Wi-Fi (we'll have a look at that later)…

… and a menu. Prices are very good for Canadian Dollars.

Shortly after, the crew came around with drinks, a chocolate bar, and a bag of pretzels. 

Crossing the border into the USA. 

 
Let's have a look at the onboard Wi-Fi. Free Wi-Fi is available for Aeroplan and United MilagePlus members as well as business class passengers. 

It's also CA$8 for non members, which isn't worth it for a 90 minute flight. 

Streaming is also available - it's got a pretty good selection of moves and shows. There's also a kids' section catering to kids of various ages. 

Descending into New York. Manhattan can be seen below. 

And here's our path into New York, landing on JFK's runway 13L.

This weird path into JFK is to provide separation to aircraft arriving/departing Newark and LaGuardia. The approach path for those airports lies west of JFK, necessitating aircraft landing on 13L to do a last-minute turn to align with the runway. 

Nice view of JFK as we overfly the airport. 

Flying south over the ocean. Long Beach can be seen on the right. 

And finally, welcome to New York! We arrived 20 minutes early, which is great news for me!

Parked at the gate. 

【 We made it! 】

Air Canada uses Terminal 7 at JFK. As mentioned earlier, because of US preclearance, we are treated as a domestic flight. 

Walking past the gates to get to baggage reclaim. 

And here it is. It's a pretty tight space. 

And here we are on the arrivals floor landside. 

Taking the AirTrain to get to my Uber. The AirTrain is free for people moving between terminals, but it will cost money if you go all the way to Jamaica or Howard Beach. Here's Terminal 8 with two British Airways Boeing 777s heading to London (LHR). 

And that's it for this FR. Fortunately, I was able to reschedule my appointment an hour later to 4 pm, and because we arrived 20 minutes early (plus JFK is closer to the location than LGA), I was able to arrive in plenty of time. Hooray! 

Thanks for following me on this pretty unique/stressful flight. This next FR in this series will cover my flight out of New York - thanks for reading and see you there! ;)