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: 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

Helser's on Alberta | 1538 Northeast Alberta Street | Portland, OR

Flying is idiotic.  Not all flying of course, I'm well aware that without the power of flight bumblebees, herons and the like would have a hard time getting around.  Human beings however were not born with the benefit of wings and are not particularly aerodynamic so we've spent the better part of our history tottering about on two legs, trying not to fall from high places and doing just fine.  A pack of maniacs who women tend to avoid decided that their free time would be best spent trying to defy nature and eventually, after much tribulation, we had the aeroplane.  The start of the airline industry meant that ordinary folks like you and me got to experience the immediacy of mortality courtesy of a flimsy metal tube hurtling across the sky at 500 miles an hour.  Because government bodies thrive on misery the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 was passed, which gave airlines & passengers carte blanche to stop caring about anything. 

From then on ordinary folks like you and me still got to experience the glory of the Skycoffin but now with two hundred other people dressed in sweat-pants, all with whooping plague, enjoying the same level of comfort offered in a cattleyard.  Add in turbulence and the looming possibility that some resentful virgin who spends too much time on the internet has hidden explosives in his underpants and air travel for fun makes as much sense as trying to kick a bear in the testicles.  The only time I will consent to air travel is when time is short, such as this weekend past when Nicky & I visited our friends Rose & Scott in Portland. 

Flying in the Dash 8 aircraft used by Air Canada for short hops like Victoria-Vancouver & Vancouver-Portland is to feel like you've been packed into a Port-a-John and launched by catapult.  I'm not normally a religious man but but if the almighty has an answering machine then by the time I got to PDX I'd filled the tape.   It was all worth it though, to see good friends, have good times and eat good food.  Portland eateries have almost never disappointed me and Helser's comes in at the top of what was already an esteemed list.