Good morning from Calgary International Airport!
My name is Alex, and welcome to another trip report!
Today, I’m crossing off an aircraft that’s quite common around here,
but I haven’t actually flown on it yet with this airline - Air Canada Express’ Dash 8-400.
This 78-seater turboprop forms the backbone of Air Canada’s regional network,
and Jazz Aviation operates 39 of these on behalf of Air Canada.
The final destination today is actually Montreal, but this
unnecessary connection in Regina actually made things a bit cheaper when booking.
Even then, the connection in Regina was fairly short, so I was mainly just hoping to take a look
around the terminal. For my Saskatchewan viewers, I’ll hopefully do a proper visit at some point!
Today’s aircraft taking us over the prairies is this De Havilland Canada Dash 8-400,
registered as Charlie Golf Sierra Juliet Zulu.
This Dash 8 was first delivered back in November 2015, and has flown with Jazz since then.
Now, just a few minutes before boarding, here’s where things went a bit haywire.
The screen at the gate was suddenly showing this plane departing for Edmonton, not Regina,
and our flight would apparently be departing from one gate that was
pretty far away, in the International Terminal.
In light of international travel not quite being back up to 2019 levels,
YYC opened up some of the International Terminal for some domestic flights this summer.
This supposed new gate at D82 was about a 5-10 minute walk.
Once most of us got there though, you guessed it, the gate had switched back to the original one.
So if you can imagine 60-some passengers just trying to go to Saskatchewan (for some reason),
including our crew walking all the way there and back,
it was a bit of a mess. Just to be clear though, I don’t think this was anyone’s fault in particular,
it might’ve just been a really unfortunate glitch that had a bit of a ripple effect.
Finally though, we boarded about 10 minutes behind schedule.
My seat for today’s flight is 1A, at the very front row of this Dash 8-400.
This bulkhead row has some pretty decent legroom and a solid view of the prop.
It is worth mentioning though that these seats don’t have any headrests,
although they’re still relatively comfortable.
There’s also the seatback pocket in front for both the window and aisle seats.
We ended up having to wait a little bit longer once we got on board,
since the gate change meant that our baggage had also gone halfway across the airport.
Soon enough though, we pushed back and the engines were started up for departure, off of runway... oh
hang on, we’ve been sitting with the engines running for quite a bit longer than normal.
I had a feeling something was up.
At this point, I was not feeling that hopeful about my connection and was,
y’know, rethinking my choice to not just fly directly to Montreal.
However, as the gate agent went through the plane, I mentioned my
predicament to one of our cabin crew. By sheer coincidence, and probably a stupid amount of luck,
the captain for my Regina to Montreal flight was actually positioning there on this flight.
So basically, that flight wasn’t going anywhere until ours landed which was quite the relief!
Anyway, with everything sorted out, we were finally heading out an hour and a half late.
Here’s the departure from Calgary, off of runway 29!
Air Canada Express’s Dash 8-400s seat 78 people in an all-economy layout.
For those who value their kneecaps, only four of those seats offer any real extra
legroom - the bulkhead seats in 1A and 1C, and the exit row seats in 2D and 2F.
In these seats, you’ll find the tray table in the armrest as usual.
These fold out across your lap, but don’t slide.
Handed out during boarding was Air Canada’s CleanCare kit, although a slimmer version of
the ones they were giving out last year. Inside are some wipes, an extra mask, and hand sanitizer.
The flight itself was mostly in cloud so there wasn’t much to see,
although we did get a brief glimpse at the Red Deer River making its way eastward.
Thankfully though, especially after the delay,
there was a snack service, and I went for some pretzels and the usual cup of coke.
From then on, the view outside was mostly clouds, and we soon started our descent.
Here’s the arrival into Regina, landing on runway 31!
So, that was an… interesting flight with Air Canada Express! It certainly wasn’t
what I had in mind when I decided to fly across the country via Regina.
I obviously made it to Montreal in the end though so I’m not complaining!
The crew were definitely very apologetic and super friendly to begin with.
I was hoping to get some more cabin footage after landing and maybe a
look at the flight deck, but I needed to make sure I got on that next flight!
And it’s a good thing I did too, since this was the trip where I next flew with Air Inuit.
I do wonder though how different that day would’ve turned out had that CRJ captain not been on board with us.
Speaking of CRJs, we conveniently parked right next door, and thus began the shortest connection I’ve ever had.
That’s a flight for another time though,
so for now I’ll just say thank you very much for watching, and I will see you next time!