AC 417 Montreal - Toronto
27 September 2024

This is a continuation of a reasonably-priced transatlantic journey from London (flight report here). After clearing immigration relatively quickly, I exited into the domestic pier. It looked fairly new and there were lots of seating areas and a few decent-looking restaurants. As I walked the long corridor, the crowds increasingly got bigger and the building turned older and more claustrophobic. Plane spotting was mostly Air Canada but in a variety of shapes and sizes. There are pretty much hourly flights to Toronto Pearson, in addition to the regional jet flights to the smaller Billy Bishop airport downtown, so any delays coming in from London would have been far easier to manage. This was my main reason why I picked Montreal to transit just in case a few surprises come en route. Would you try gas station sushi? Would you try airport terminal sushi in a box? I wouldn't if I had a long flight ahead. I had budgeted a 2 hour connection here and things have gone very well so far. Arrival immigration was a breeze and with still a lot of time on my hands, I checked out the terminal map to see where to explore. I noticed a tunnel that links to a separate pier and saw an entrance to the escalators. It was fairly hard to spot at first, but they led to a very long corridor with a moving walkway to reach a ground-level pier with no jet bridges, presumably for regional jets. Satisfied with my walk around and still full from the pastry, I returned back to the main terminal settled near my gate. Soon I got an email that we were boarding. Boarding finished early at 1:29pm and we pushed back right on time 10 minutes later. We took off for the short flight to Toronto at 2:01pm. Heading west, I wasn't able to spot Montreal's skyline this time. I didn't have much expectations for service on these hour-long flights. But I had selected a widebody plane amidst the many frequencies on this route. It's been a while since I've been on their A330 though! Each seat has its own entertainment device and there is more than enough to keep you happy for this short flight, and perhaps for a longer one across the continent. It's good to see an increasing number of airlines offer live TV on board. We each received a drink and a small bag of snacks, which were delicious. Half an hour after take-off, we were descending towards Toronto. I had purposedly picked a left window seat during online check-in hoping to see the city on final approach. It was a special bonus that the weather was perfect and the flight was nowhere near full so I got plenty of window seats to choose from. There's a long-standing debate on whether it's quicker to fly or take the train. VIA Rail takes a bit over 5 hours so if you factor in getting to and from the airport, it's fairly close. Flying might be a little faster if you have hand baggage only since you can directly exit upon arrival without going through any more formalities. Soon, I spotted Toronto's eastern boundary with Pickering and the city unfold beneath me. We were coming in from the east, then veered southwest past downtown and towards Lake Ontario, flying over the lake to around Oakville before looping back to land from the west. My left window had a spectacular downtown skyline view, while those on the right side would've spotted suburban Mississauga's emerging city centre later on. Toronto is going through a housing affordability crisis as prices have skyrocketed in recent years. However, it's not an issue with supply, since there is plenty of land in the suburbs to build and plenty more land to intensify density within the city. So this is a man-made problem that the various levels of government have allowed to go out of control. Things are starting to change where swathes of single family homes are no longer the sustainable urban development strategy but public transit has yet to catch up. It's North America after all, where cars are king and taking transit isn't really the popular way to get around. We landed at 2:55pm, ahead of schedule. This widebody was quite comfortable in part due to the lighter loading, and I had a good flight. Given it's Air Canada, there can be many disappointments along the way but how often do they actually arrive early? My luggage also didn't take long to come out of the belt and I was land-side fairly soon. Since I had cleared immigration in Montreal earlier, this was a purely domestic flight with no more checks. So how many of you had a pleasant experience flying Air Canada across the Atlantic?