Last month our Product and Marketing Executive Ella was lucky enough to fly to Toronto with Air Transat. Below she tells us about her experience and why she’d love to fly with Air Transat again!

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In April I flew from Manchester to Toronto with Air Transat in the Option Plus class. The route departs twice per week in April, with one flight on Tuesday and one on Friday. My travel companion and I flew on the Friday flight, which takes off at around 12:30 and lands at 15:30 Toronto time – this was great as we landed in Toronto and had the rest of the day to explore! We actually landed 45 minutes earlier than our scheduled arrival which left us even more time to explore this amazing city.

Pre-flight 

Prior to our departure, I downloaded the Air Transat app which has some really handy tools built in. Firstly, you can see a countdown to your flight with a picture of your destination which definitely got me excited for my trip! It also reminds you to check in, download the in-flight entertainment app and – my favourite part – gives you the option to add tasks to tick off before your flight. I even got a reminder to switch off all my household lights and electricals when it was time to leave for the airport! As well as this, you can check your flight schedule to make sure it is running on time. It was really useful to have all of this information within one easy-to-use app!

At the airport

There are many great benefits to upgrading to Option Plus: 1) the 2x 23kg bag allowance (perfect for all the shopping you’ll do in Toronto!) and 2) priority baggage check-in at the airport. We had checked in online so dropping our bag off took just five minutes, and your luggage will be given a ‘Priority’ tag so that your bag will be first out in Toronto.

These added benefits made the beginning of our trip so simple and we were through to the departure lounge, drink in hand, within 40 minutes of our arrival at the airport – a great way to start your holiday!

On-board

You can choose to select your seats at online check-in 24 hours before departure at a fee, or with Option Plus your seat selection is included in the price. At the back of the plane there are several rows of seats that are in a row of two rather than three, which is where we sat. Not only was there extra legroom, but there were no awkward disruptions to the person on the aisle seat if me or my friend got up – as there isn’t a seat there! This is great for people who like to get up and move around during a flight.

After take off, our steward came round with our amenity kit which included a sleeping mask, blanket, earphones and blow up neck pillow. This is available for free to those flying with Option Plus, and can be bought for about $16-18 CAD. It comes in a handy bag and Air Transat encourage you to re-use your amenity kit to ‘make the world a little greener’, which is a concept I love. My only qualm with this is that I would’ve liked to have the kit before take off so I could get comfy!

For Option Plus flyers, you get a complimentary drink (alcoholic or soft) and snack from the Bistro menu, which was a nice start to our flight before we tried to get some sleep. Later on in the flight, we had a meal served to us (with wine or beer for both Economy and Option Plus!) which was a choice of chicken or pasta. I opted for the pasta and it really was delicious.

I used the in-flight app to track our plane's progress - you can see where your plane is flying over as well as the amount of time left to get to your destination. The rest of the flight was smooth sailing and, as I mentioned earlier, we landed 45 minutes earlier than expected! This gave us time to grab our bags (which only took ten minutes as they were prioritised) and take the UP Express into the heart of downtown Toronto to start exploring.

Air Transat also has a 'Club Class' option, with a wider seat pitch, designated in-seat televisions, an enhanced menu by a renowned chef and much more – we walked through the Club Class area and it looked fabulous!

Flying with Air Transat got my holiday off to a great start, and I’m sure it can yours, too. Find out more about Air Transat here: https://www.fcholidays.com/canada/flights/airtransat