So You Want to Go to England: Getting There - Air Transat

Photo by Martin Hartland, licensed through Creative Commons

Are you so cheap that paperboys & waiters spit at the mention of your name?  So poor you spend your evenings huddled around a burning barrel beneath a bridge?  Have you recently been released from prison and found yourself wanting to relive the experience, with the added dimension of possibly plummeting thousands of feet to certain death?  If you answered “yes” to any of these questions then the next time you plan a vacation you’ll want to give Air Transat a call.

"The in-flight movie is what?"

Passenger reviews for the budget airline are mixed, with one passenger describing it as "You either swear by or at Air Transat.”  Most speak highly of the carrier’s customer service and denounce everything else with the kind of fury I haven’t seen since Kevin Bacon’s “angry dance” in Footloose.  There are no seatback televisions, the seats are narrow and legroom is nonexistent, but with economy class fares up to $500 less than those offered by Air Canada there is something to be said for flying the thrifty skies.

So You Want to Go to England: Getting There - Air Canada

- Photo by Patrick Cardinal, licensed through Creative Commons

You know your no-account brother?  The one who passes bad cheques and storms out of the intervention when your father says “You’re killing your mother – just killing her!”?  If he ran an airline it would be Air Canada.  Something of a running joke here in the Great White North, Air Canada has, in the span of a single decade, been bailed out by the Canadian government twice (once in 2001, again in 2009) and shows no sign of improvement.  

"On second thought, miss, I don't
need a blanket.  But thank you."

Check-in agents are grumpy, flight attendants could frighten Rampage Jackson and should a delayed flight cause you to miss a connection in the evening there is no guarantee AC will issue you a hotel voucher.

My distaste for Air Canada is such that I wouldn’t mention the airline at all if not for my fellow Canadian readers, who are not exactly spoiled for choice when it comes to choosing a Transatlantic carrier*.  Given their limited options, Air Canada represents the middle ground between the higher prices and superior service of British Airways and the bargain basement airborne buses operated by Air Transat.

* Update: As of May 24th, Virgin Atlantic will be operating four flights a week from Vancouver to London Heathrow, meaning you west coasters will have even less reason to fly with Air Canada.

So You Want to Go to England: Before You Go

Before booking your flight (or boat - more on both of these in the coming weeks) you'll want to know a little more about the people and what's important to them.  In this week's instalment of "So You Want to Go to England" we help you get to know the people of the British Isles and give you some talking points should you trap one of them in a conversation:

Go to Hell

Here in North America the popular vision of an Englishmen is a slender, foppish man with very bad teeth, dressed in tweed and seducing your wife with his ironed handkerchiefs.  While in some parts of England that may still be true – Knightsbridge, Colin Firth’s house – the Englishman you’re more likely to encounter on your grand adventure is the one approaching you at the bus stop of a night, wearing a hooded sweatshirt and demanding your wallet.  

Go West (of Bristol)

The lovely and talented Nicky Storr has opened her photo blog "West of Bristol" over at www.westofbristol.com.  Click over to check out her galleries, subscribe to future updates and leave a nice comment or two.  Nothing too nice, though - I hear her husband is the jealous type.


See you Wednesday for the low-down on Coronation Street, The Only Way is Essex and other touchstones of British culture in "So You Want to Go to England:  The People"

So You Want to Go to England: Getting Started

In my life I have met people who are natural travelers - the sort who can live for 6 months on whatever they pack into a rucksack the size of a grasshopper's scrotum - but I am not one of them.  While most people come back from a vacation talking about their amazing adventure, the kindness of the locals and how their journey expanded their horizons, making them better people on a spiritual level, I complain about intestinal parasites, sunburn and being mugged by whatever passes for highwaymen in the place I have just visited.  This travel guide is for people like me.

I also take pictures like this while giggling to myself