Do things change on less popular shorter flights over the years, let’s have a look. I wrote a review flying AC between STL and YYZ from 2024, and was curious whether a route that most people don’t even know exist, has changed in two years. Welcome back to a rather shorter review today from St. Louis Lambert over to Toronto Pearson
YYZ remained at the time, the only international destination STL serves (other than Frankfurt). Montreal and London Heathrow have since joined.
Terminal 1 at STL serves all carriers except Southwest and the elusive Lufthansa flight that leaves Terminal 2. I arrived with an hour or so before my 16:01 departure, and headed over to the AC desks where only one party was ahead of me. The process was quick and I was down through security within minutes.
I used to think this was an outlier, but now it’s more than the norm at STL where the TSA Pre-check line is always much longer than general boarding. Even more so today, at least 20 people were waiting for pre-check while literally no one was in the general queue. The agent even exclaimed “hey! We were waiting for you finally a general boarder” when I reached her. Does anyone know why this is, are you not allowed to go through general boarding if you have Pre-check?
Anyways! One of the praises I gave AC on this route previously was the full hot meal it offered on an flight around 90 minutes. Despite anticipating it, I was starving and chugged down some of the most incredible buffalo wings I’ve ever had, along with some salmon that seemed too boring next to the chicken :).
Unfortunately, premium classes don’t come with lounge access here at the A gates. American Airlines has its Admirals Club over at the C gates, which is actually a very solid space considering the small size of STL.
Boarding was immiment, and after waiting around to watch some soccer I boarded with the final passengers. Upon boarding, I was pleasantly surprised to see the cabin was a step up from 2024. The seats were far more spacious and even had an IFE screen, something unheard of on such short flights. Color me impressed!
The F cabin was around half empty, and I managed to get some shots of the double seats and single seat behind me. These looked on par with Domestic First seats on the legacy carriers, ones that often fly on routes of 4 hours. Well done AC.
A bottle of water was then offered as we began to pushback, blasting out of STL at 16:01. 4 minutes early on our 1 hour 23 minute (as the captiain stated) flight over to Toronto.
On my previous flight in 2024, I was impressed ith the offerings which featured snacks and a full meal service. Today, there was no snack service which wasn’t a big deal, as having a full meal on a short flight is never a complaint.
Drink orders were taken shortly after take-off, and I went with a diet coke.
The meal was then offered. For reference, I had flown AC between Toronto and Boston back in 2021, on a flight that was similar in length. Back then, we were served essentially the same thing as today, a hummus plate. Now, for sakes of comparison with 2024, this was a huge step down in terms of meal. The flight back then had a hot chicken and rice dish which was very tasty, this in comparison was quite disappointing.
The hummus and pita bread was actually decent but it was tiny, running out in just two bites. The Dolma (I think is what that is) was ice cold. The cake and salad were fine.
If I didn’t have a point of reference, I would have been glad to receive any meal on a short flight like this. But with the elimation of snacks and removal of a hot meal, it does feel AC has cut costs on this route.
In regards to my excitement over the IFE screen, well it didn’t work. Neither did the charging ports.
We touched down in YYZ at 18:53, 13 minutes ahead of schedule, ending our short trip over to the Great White North.
A few more snaps of today's cabin.
It was quite a long walk from disembarking over to immigration, but luckily that meant getting a nice shot of our jet, something I couldn’t manage with the gate angle back at STL.
YYZ!
