Good evening from Toronto Pearson International Airport!
My name is Alex, and welcome to this special trip report.
Today’s flight is a pretty exciting one, because I’m headed over the Atlantic on
board a classic aircraft with Air Transat - their Airbus A310-300!
Air Transat is the last western operator of this shorter version of the Airbus A300.
It first flew in 1982, and production ended in 1998 with 255 aircraft built.
Today, there are less than 15 A310s in passenger service worldwide.
The A310 has been a mainstay of Air Transat’s fleet for years, for their flights between
Canada and Europe, as well as to sun destinations.
Thanks to its narrowbody-like capacity with widebody range, it was a good fit for Air
Transat’s network, and they flew as many as 14 different aircraft over the years.
At the time of recording though, Air Transat was down to just three Airbus A310s, and they’ll
eventually replace them all with new A321neoLRs.
As of February this year, the remaining three flew exclusively out of Eastern Canada, and
one of the more consistent A310 routes was Toronto to Manchester.
With some of the best plane spotting locations in the UK, naturally, that seemed like the
best option!
I was persuaded by fellow YouTuber Daniel Sander to pay extra for Option Plus on this
flight, which gives you a few perks like priority boarding and an amenity kit on board.
It also gives you your own line in the check-in area which was a bit redundant considering
I was about four hours early.
My aircraft for today - nope, not that one - is parked on a remote stand at the moment
to free up some gate space.
It’ll be towed over a bit closer to our departure time.
With some Canadian duty-free goodies in hand for the spotters I’d be meeting in Manchester,
it was off to gate C32.
Big thank you by the way to Jonathan Winton and Mraviationguy for making the trip there
to meet up with me.
I had a fantastic, albeit very jetlagged two days of spotting with them, and I’ll be
posting that video a bit later on.
After waiting around for a bit, our aircraft was towed in - this Airbus A310-300 registered
as Charlie Golf Sierra Alpha Tango.
This aircraft was delivered brand new to Emirates in 1992, before flying with Kenya Airways
for a year and eventually joining Air Transat’s fleet in 2001.
"Thank you for waiting, passengers on Air Transat Flight 292 with service to Manchester. At this time..."
At 28 years old, this will also be the oldest Airbus widebody that I’ve flown to date,
so let’s go board this classic Airbus A310.
My seat for this night flight over to Manchester is 4A.
One thing you’ll have noticed that I didn’t mention yet is that these aircraft are in
a tight 3-3-3 configuration.
Air Transat’s A330s all have this configuration with even narrower seats.
However, these older, padded ones are actually a bit more spacious, even with the fixed armrests
in this row.
Row 4 is located right behind Air Transat’s more expensive Club Class seats, so the legroom
here is fantastic.
However, the window was a bit…
gross.
There’s a seatback pocket in front, as well as lots of under-seat storage, especially
for the window and aisle.
Soon enough, we pushed back, and Air Transat played their safety video, unfortunately right
as the engines started up.
However, on the taxi out, I quickly realized the crew weren’t going to be dimming the
lights for takeoff, at least in the Economy cabin only, for some reason.
Needless to say, I had to cover up the window with my jacket to block the reflections from
ruining the takeoff footage.
Tired Alex somehow made it work, so here’s our departure from Toronto-Pearson’s runway 06L.
Much to my annoyance, the lights stayed on full brightness for a solid 10 minutes after departure.
Eventually, they dimmed and we were treated to Air Transat’s characteristic mood lighting.
Following that, a cabin crew member came around with a choice of snack, earbuds, and this
comfort kit, all of which are Option Plus perks.
The same crew member mentioned to hang on to those earbuds for my return flight.
They were so nice about it, I didn’t have the heart to tell them I was flying home with WestJet!
The comfort kit itself includes a drawstring bag for the contents, an eye mask, inflatable
neck pillow, and this very comfortable blanket.
On Air Transat’s A310s, Economy Class passengers don’t have any personal in-flight entertainment screens.
Instead, they have these retro-looking moving maps on each bulkhead wall.
However; there is still streaming-based entertainment available for free, accessed by connecting
to Air Transat’s wifi network and going to their website.
Although my phone gave me this red flag when accessing the website, the selection on board
is pretty good, and there’s some flight information as well.
However, internet access wasn’t available for purchase.
As we passed over New Brunswick, the meal service started.
On my tray was a main course of some unidentifiable meat with rice, a bread roll, chocolate cookie,
a container of vegetables, and a cup of water.
It wasn’t until I tried to stomach the gluten free bread roll, that I realized they had
somehow given me the wrong meal entirely.
You can tell I was hungry!
I had actually ordered one of the gourmet pre-paid meals so… not sure what happened
there, but either way, it was, in fact, airplane food.
After that, I promptly fell asleep.
This row was perfect for me since I could completely stretch out under the seat in front.
That blanket was super comfortable and really nice to have on this overnight flight.
I woke up south of Iceland after a couple hours of sleep, and the sun began to rise
as we approached the Irish coast.
At this point there was another drink and snack service, which I just missed entirely.
Air Transat’s A310s seat 250 passengers in two classes.
Up front is Club Class, with 12 armchair style seats in a 2-2-2 configuration.
It’s essentially a Premium Economy product, but the prices were three to four times that
of a normal economy ticket!
Economy Class is a bit tighter, with 238 seats in a 3-3-3 configuration, which narrows to
2-3-2 in the rear of the cabin.
Like the mood lighting or not, it definitely hides the age of this aircraft!
There’s also a large accessible lavatory in the aft galley which had a ton of space.
Back at my seat, the sun was finally rising, with some beautiful morning light on these
CF6 engines.
Before we start our descent, here’s a look at the seatback pocket contents.
On this transatlantic flight, Air Transat has a safety card, air sickness bag, instructions
for the inflight entertainment, buy-on-board menu, duty free catalogue,
and their inflight magazine.
Just before arrival, the crew handed out these mints to every passenger, which I think is
a really nice touch!
Sadly though, this flight on a Classic Airbus had to come to an end, as we descended into
Manchester, landing on runway 23R.
Overall, I had a really nice time with Air Transat!
The crew on board were super friendly, and although a few of them no doubt questioned
my sanity for booking a flight just for the A310, it was a great experience.
What’s interesting is, the 9-across configuration is much more tolerable on the A310 versus
the A330.
The 330s have these really narrow, slimline seats, but the padded leather ones on the
310 are actually not that bad.
The concept of Option Plus is interesting as well, paying to receive an elevated class
of service while still sitting in the same seats as everyone else.
It does make me wonder how much it complicates the service for the crew.
However, I would probably choose Option Plus again in the future, the priority boarding
was great for video purposes, and the extras touches like the snack and comfort kit were
pretty nice too.
I will say the cleanliness of the window was not great.
That and the food mixup were probably the only downsides.
The meal was mostly edible though, and I was just too tired to care!
Honestly, this was about being able to fly the A310 more than anything, so a mixed up
meal isn’t that big an issue.
In the days leading up to the flight, I was definitely nervous about Air Transat swapping
the aircraft for something else.
I wasn’t sure I’d get another chance to fly the A310, so having everything work out
was a huge relief.
This being one of my last chances to fly an A310, I obviously had to ask for a flight deck visit.
The flight crew were super friendly and accomodating, and it was really cool to see just how different
Airbus flight decks were designed!
They also mentioned to me that this A310 would be the next one to retire.
After scheduled flights ended in April, the remaining two would be kept as spare aircraft
until September, one in Montreal, and another one in Paris.
At least, that WAS the plan.
Sadly, it’s been confirmed that the remaining A310s will now leave the fleet for good
at the end of March, 5 months ahead of schedule.
I really couldn’t have picked a better time to do this flight, and am very glad I had
the chance to fly on an Airbus A310.
Thank you very much for watching this trip report with Air Transat.
If you liked the video, please give it a thumbs up, consider subscribing if you’re new,
and until next time, take care.