Flight Report
BA 99 London Heathrow - Toronto
18 April 2025

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Toronto is a fairly well-served transatlantic route with 3 traditional main line carriers serving Heathrow. British Airways flies double daily while Air Canada has 4 flights. Virgin just entered the picture a few weeks earlier, reviving their route after many years absent.

Having flown Air Canada on this route recently, I wanted to give BA a try.

I reached Heathrow Terminal 5 a full 2 hours before departure, a fairly rare feat for me since I tend to like to cut it close, but with the Easter public holiday and various train service reductions, I didn't want to make a run for it. Luckily, Terminal 5 is quite easy to get through with plenty of kiosks to print my boarding pass and plenty more belts to drop off my bag. It's a 2-step process where you get your boarding pass first then move to another machine to scan it to get your bag tag and send it off. Surprisingly, the machine prompted me to check in any further hand carries for free.

As I entered the line for security, one staff held a sign to check your hand carry for free. This is not specific to a particular flight and open to everyone. I think BA now understands delays because of insufficient overhead space will eat into their profits with various fines from the airport so they have to capitulate. Hopefully, one day they and the rest of the industry will come to their senses and rethink how fares should be unbundled.

Security didn't take long to get through either and with the new scanners, all electronics can stay in the bags so it's a lot less painful for passengers.

However, it was a zoo beyond in the main terminal, as usual. The seating areas were packed to the brim and it smelled stuffy in the confined space. I suspect it's because this airport likes to tell you which gate to go to fairly late, so you are stuck in the holding pen looking up at the boards to know where to go. The screens showed my flight's gate number would appear at 4pm, which is fairly late given our boarding time is 4:15pm for a 5:15pm departure. A second message indicated it would depart from the B gates.

So to pass some time, I browsed around the shops, which had the typical meal deal sandwiches and touristy souvenir brands. Of particular interest is Lindt's latest sensation - Dubai-style chocolate. I had only tried it for the first time a few days earlier but didn't find it particularly special. It's just chocolate with pistachio, yet the price was a lot more expensive than their other chocolates. Here at the airport, they charge a hefty 29% premium over the 10 pounds charged by Lindt's flagship store at Piccadilly Circus.

Nevertheless, I wanted to get away from the bottleneck choke point and decided to take the train out to the B gates, which is the 2nd stop. Emerging from the escalators, I found a far more serene environment with plenty of seats, lots of big windows for good plane spotting, and the same duty-free shops offering meal deal sandwiches and Walkers biscuits.

There are plenty of planes in various sizes to see here although it is a bit boring with BA birds only.

There wasn't much action happening at the B pier. There was a delayed Pittsburgh flight boarding and a Vancouver flight departing at the same time as us. Huge windows at both ends of the building offer a great view of landing and departing aircraft. After having a quick snack and observing the landing activity on the north runway, I leisurely walked to my gate for boarding.

2 staff would check your passport and boarding pass before you enter the line to scan yourself in. While they announced which boarding group is up, there is no dedicated Business Class line so their premium experience would include lining up with the glob.

After passing through Business and Premium Economy, I emerged in cattle class and soon my seat in the back Economy cabin. Each seat had a blanket and headphone placed already. Leg room was fairly decent and I had a big window next to me for some aerials hopefully.

However, during kiosk check-in, only 1 window seat was still available on the right side, which meant I would likely get a suburban view on approach into Pearson.

It was a fairly full flight with a sprinkle of empty seats here and there. We finished boarding quite early at 4:52pm but had to wait for the cargo to load. Then, we were delayed out because of congestion at the airport, which the flight deck had informed us at 5:13pm, ultimately pushing back at 5:32pm. This was only a small delay from our original 5:15pm departure, and we took off towards the east at 5:48pm.

It was a cloudy day in London but I was able to make out the new developments around North Acton and the City beyond as we turned north. We didn't fly over Central London but my right window was the right place to spot the city in the distance.

The West End is mostly lowrises with a hefty price tag, with Earl's Court and Notting Hill shown on the left, the Hyde Park on the right.

The grand view of London before we entered the clouds ...

With clouds rolling in, I turned my attention to the good IFE system with plenty of selection and a fairly good map. The crew came around with a first round of drinks and a pretzel snack, and my FA was quite friendly, handing over 2 small cans of ginger ale, 1 of which I kept for later in the flight. The crew seemed quite cheerful and more pleasant than Air Canada.

There were 2 choices for dinner - chicken or vegetarian. Luckily, the chicken was still available for me and it tasted quite decent with mashed potatoes and some carrots. The side salad was a mix of pea and some cream underneath which was a little odd. There was also a bread roll, cheese, crackers, and a sweet dessert. It looked and tasted better than Air Canada's offering.

The moving map is one of the best I've seen in the industry with plenty of data and even a time zone map. There is also a prayer timeline for Muslim passengers. Our second meal was a warm wrap, which was the same as my recent Doha flight as both were similar in length.

As the sunset hour rolled in, we descended over Toronto's northern suburbs as the evening lights started flickering on.

Here is a view of Richmond Hill, laid out in rectangular blocks about 2km x 2km in size. It was originally built as a lowrise suburb of houses but they've smartened up and started building taller condos along Yonge Street and added dedicated transit lanes.

Highway 407 is the relatively new toll freeway crossing the northern part of the city from east to west. While designed to relieve the traffic jam-laden 401 a bit further south, the hefty charges keep many drivers away, and it opened under great controversy as driving is an essential activity in this part of the world and private sector involvement with levies are frowned upon. It's still a contentious issue today but I doubt the government has the dollars to buy it back and open it up for free.

The downtown core was off to the left while I got a more residential and industrial view as we made final approach from the east.

We landed at 7:56pm, right on time, to end this uneventful flight. BA's offering is better than Air Canada with more cheerful crew, slightly better food, and a much more interesting IFE selection.

However, Toronto's Terminal 3 is not a pleasant place to arrive from my many years of experience using it. It seemed a bit better this time with many immigration kiosks available well before the immigration hall and I was able to find an available machine quickly. However, the terminal was filthy with a lot of garbage from crumbs to discarded papers on the carpets. It seems the dirt has accumulated over time. Where did the cleaning staff go?

While immigration was fairly quick, I ended up waiting quite some time for my bag to come out of the belt. A little over an hour after landing, I exited land-side looking for the people mover back to Terminal 1 for my bus. Why can't there be 2 bus stops to serve the airport's 2 terminals?