"Welcome aboard
Air Canada a member of Star Alliance" "For your safety and comfort please
check you're in the right seat."
It was 12 days ago I was at this airport and I said we'll be flying on one of Air
Canada's new A220s and things didn't exactly go to plan. Five days ago I was in Calgary on
that wonderful bike path and again I said 'we'll be on the A220' and well in that case
my flight was overbooked. I offered up my seat and things actually went pretty well for myself.
So perhaps third time is the charm. Today we're going to experience Air Canada's RapidAir
which covers their Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa triangle and I believe it's a scalene triangle.
Today I'm off to Ottawa, my first time to visit the national capital and I just got off the bus
about to head inside the terminal which reminds me I need to put on a mask before I go inside.
So come along as we go from A to B and hopefully...I'm not going to promise it we'll be on an A220.
Once again welcome back to another video and my third attempt to fly on the elusive A220.
This is the start of three videos as we make our way around the highly traveled Toronto,
Ottawa, Montreal triangle. We started by taking the elevator from ground
level where public transit is located up to the departures floor of terminal 1.
And this gets us to the check-in area for a U.S bound flights. Catch yourself flying
out of Terminal 1 to the States and this is where you'll complete U.S pre-clearance. Domestic gates and
check-in, on the other hand, are on the other side of the terminal so I quickly made my way there.
The airport felt much busier today than when I was here two weeks ago this was a quick trip for me so
I didn't have any check baggage this day. Now as I headed to security I noted this crowd of people
here and usually you could just walk right through to the D gates... but something was going on here...hmmmm.
It appeared that Air Canada started to verify the size of carry on baggage which had wheels
so I was actually able to sneak right by.
EE: This is the second of three domestic trips I took in Canada this summer.
We were then instructed to go through security for the E-gates which is primarily meant for
international flights and thankfully the queue wasn't terribly long as it often is.
Alright so that's the first time they ever said to go through the
E - security for domestic flight which is usually for international and they said
it's faster but D Gates (security) over here at the D gate security
it doesn't really look that busy at all does it on the other side of the glass.
Anyways just this little corridor to the domestic side of terminal one.
Huh. I didn't know that uh corridor led to that floor with the security there. Out
of all my years flying here, never knew that that path existed... good to know for the future.
Anyway it's the morning so I'm definitely going
to get a coffee before we board the flight so let's go ahead and do that.
EE: If you watch my first YYZ video, you'll see the Tim Hortons location has changed to here.
All right so I grab my double-double and I thought I'd come down here to show you kind
of the RapidAir area. It's usually about the 20's (gates) and and we're at D31 today so kind
of in that pocket when you come down from security they try and make it fast if
you have connections or if you want to get out the airport really quickly. And they even
made a couple years back Air Canada made a ...I think it's called 'café' or something like that.
It's like a smaller Lounge compared to their larger one which is up upstairs by security so
how they designed it is...sorry... how they designed it is everything's kind of really close so you
can come and go if you have a connection you want to leave the airport fast and uh
just yeah just kind of in this pocket. So we're at gate 31 today and I'll just head there now.
And here's our aircraft arriving to the gate at 11:10. and this was the closest I got to this
aircraft five days ago in Calgary so at this point I'm still not 100 certain I'd get on it.
But 35 minutes later and we're boarding.
As I take my seat we're still not in the clear quite yet. There was a mechanical issue with
the plane and initially we were told it would be resolved in 10 minutes. And 10 minutes came and went.
We got an update from the flight deck at 12:35 saying that they are continuing to work
on the issue and if it couldn't be resolved a new aircraft would have to be brought in.
Just kidding! At 1 pm we were told that we would be good to go and at 1:17 we finally pushed back.
Even though a delay of an hour is less than ideal, it illustrates how safe the flying industry is.
All the regulations, checks, and hard-working individuals ensure that we can get from A to
B in the safest possible way. Anyway as we're finally underway let's go ahead and check
out the scouting report for Air Canada's A220s. Today we are on one of the 30 which Air
Canada currently operates in their fleet and they chose to purchase exclusively the longer
300 variant consisting of two classes. There are 137 seats on board and three laboratories.
And a fun fact is that this is the very aircraft I came so close to boarding
in Calgary five days prior and I only noticed this while I was editing the video months later.
The economy cabin has 25 rows and a spacious 2-3 seating configuration with LED lighting
running down the length of the aircraft. The seats are dark grey with red accents and light
grey seat backs. The large windows provide lots of natural light on these daytime flights. The seats
are comfortable and a slimmer design than what we've experienced on other aircrafts this summer.
The adjustable headrest provides added comfort and the seat reclines. Useful for those longer flights.
Seatback contains the Ife screen with its audio USB and USB C ports and credit card slot. The screen
easily pivots providing a better viewing angle. And below is the table and pocket. Seat pitch on the a220 is
30 inches - two less compared to the A320 but with a slimmer seat design it's a little more forgiving.
The table is smaller than the standard size being
more optimal to support an iPad or tablet rather than a full-size laptop.
And above there is the air control and reading light. And you'll see the
iconic illuminated 'no smoking' sign has given away to a Wi-Fi symbol to indicate
when it's available. Prices for Wi-Fi depend on distance and on this short flight I saw the
cheapest plan during my travels. $1 for the messaging pass. And as is tradition this is part of
the episode where I invite you to subscribe for continued aviation and travel related content.
The Ife on the A220 is very quick and smooth and probably the best
Ife system in economy in Air Canada's fleet. I especially enjoyed the minimizing feature
so you can continue to watch while browsing. On this flight there was a quick service offering
pretzels and water. I only requested the former as I already had my bottle.
There are two laboratories at the rear of the aircraft for economy passengers and they were nice,
fresh, bright and with a reasonable amount of space. I did find funny that the mirror was not in front
of the sink it's off to the side so you kind of have to bend over to check how beautiful you are.
and I'm surprised - especially in today's world - they didn't go with a sensor to control the tap
as this is a high contact area.
Overall once we got going it was a quick flight over to Ottawa. You could probably
tell from the clouds and the video throughout it was a bumpy flight for the majority of time.
The a220 is used on longer flights as well and it's a comfortable way to get across the continent.
The major difference you see here is that the Bistro menu would be offered on those
longer routes. Anyway with the delay that we had we ended up landing at 2:05.
The cost for this one-way economy ticket came up to $155.
All right so that's Air Canada's RapidAir to Eastern Ontario and I'm gonna have to check
which one is close: Toronto to Ottawa or Tokyo to Osaka both are pretty quick flights and hey
a third time's a charm we were able to enjoy the A220 and it's a nice lovely regional
aircraft I love the large windows on it and the new in-flight entertainment especially
compared to the older A320s. Definitely a big upgrade there and nice clean cabin and
very smooth flight and very quiet too you can definitely tell how quiet the A220 is
compared to some other aircraft and yeah got to Ottawa so thanks for watching let me know what
you thought about Air Canada's RapidAir and the A220 and I'll see you in the next video!