Good evening from Vancouver International Airport!
My name is Alex, and welcome to another trip report.
In today’s video, I’m flying back home to Calgary on Air Transat, a flight that’s
actually being operated by Canadian North, on board a Boeing 737-300.
Canadian North is a northern Canadian airline that mostly flies within the Northwest Territories
and Nunavut.
They fly a fleet of Boeing 737-200s, -300s, and -400s as well as a few classic Dash 8s
and ATR 42s.
Now, it’s not often you get to fly Canadian North on a scheduled domestic flight this
far south.
However, they do run a substantial charter operation, and this 737-300 is part of that.
At the time, this particular aircraft was on a wet lease to Air Transat, meaning the
tickets were sold by Air Transat, but the crew and aircraft are from Canadian North.
For Transat, this sort of arrangement isn’t uncommon, especially here in Western Canada.
After printing my boarding pass, I can’t help but feel a bit jealous of this domestic
check-in hall!
Vancouver International Airport, or YVR, has won the Best Airport in North America award
for 10 years in a row.
Although Skytrax is, well, Skytrax, it’s not hard to see why YVR is on top.
My aircraft for today is parked at gate B22, which is in an odd part of YVR’s domestic terminal.
As you can see, all of the gates here are open and fairly bright, but just a moment
later, it feels a bit like I’ve been transported back to the 1980s.
Don’t get me wrong, I love flying through Vancouver, but maybe not these gates.
Waiting at B22 is today’s aircraft, C-GICN, a Boeing 737-300 built in 1998.
I’ve got a pretty solid engine view seat on this flight, so let’s go see what it’s
like to fly with Canadian North...
or, Air Transat?
Canadian Transat?
Either way, it’s a new aircraft type for me, let’s go check it out.
Here’s my seat for this flight, the bulkhead in 1A.
I quickly realized I should’ve picked the other side, 1F, but the legroom here is adequate
for someone tall like myself.
There is zero stretching room, but at least my knees will survive.
As you’d expect, the tray tables for this row are in the armrests, but the window one
can be moved for more space.
There’s a storage pocket in front with a pretty lengthy literature package, which I’ll
go over once we’re in the air.
My only complaint right now is that the aircraft is really hot, most passengers have their
vents on maximum, but it’s not doing much.
To be fair, it was July when this took place,
(please do not mock my upload schedule, thank you very much)
… and it did get better once we were airborne.
Here’s our departure from Vancouver, taking off into the sunset from runway 26L.
I think that may have been one of the best departures I’ve ever experienced!
I personally love flying in BC, the scenery never fails to impress.
In the seatback pocket are quite a few items, including a Canadian North safety card,
… a donation envelope,
… an air sickness bag,
… Air Transat’s onboard menu, most of the items not applying since the flight is
so short,
… Air Transat’s inflight magazine,
… a package holiday brochure,
… as well as their duty-free catalogue.
Boeing’s 737-300 was the first member of the 737 Classic Series, which consisted of
the -300, -400, and -500 variants.
In Canada, Canadian North, Air Inuit, and Nolinor are the only operators of the mid-size
-300 variant.
Although they’re slowly being phased out around the world, there’s plenty of them
serving Northern Canada, and Canadian North actually has 10 of them registered.
As a result, Canadian North keeps these aircraft pretty busy over the summer.
This one flew to Mexico and back the day before, continuing on to Calgary this evening, and
these domestic legs can be booked through Air Transat.
So from an avgeek perspective, it was probably the easiest and most inexpensive way to fly
a 737-300 within Canada.
As with most flights from Calgary to Vancouver, it was just long enough for an inflight service,
and I had a can of Coke and some ice for my drink.
There were also some chocolate bars for sale.
These 737-300s are in an all-economy configuration, with 136 seats according to Canadian North’s website.
For a 21 year old 737, it’s got quite the history, being delivered to British Airways
originally, before flying with Go Fly, EasyJet, Shandong Airlines,
and eventually to Canadian North in 2013.
There were some drop-down screens above with a helpful moving map, but other than that,
there wasn’t much to do except admire the Rocky Mountains in some gorgeous sunset lighting!
Not long after, we started our descent into Calgary, for a golden hour landing on runway 17R.
Overall, this flight with "Canadian Transat" wasn’t too bad at all.
Canadian North is always a great airline to fly with, and it’s nice to see that their
hospitality carries over even on a lease like this.
The crew were very friendly for the most part, and I got to have my usual visit to the flight
deck after landing!
The minimal onboard service was most likely down to Air Transat’s policies and the short
length of the flight.
Flying a true Canadian North operated flight, you get some very nice food.
I also had the same single drink and snack for sale on my outbound flight with (Air Transat's)
A330, so it’s not unexpected.
The seats were adequate, but if you’re looking for room to stretch out, I’d definitely
go with 1D, E, or F, or there’s always the exit rows further back.
Regardless, it was still a pretty good flight in the end.
So there we go, that concludes another trip report.
I do apologize for the lack of uploads recently, things have gotten pretty busy outside of
YouTube, but I’m still working to bring you content as much as I can.
As always though, thank you very much for watching, leave a like if you enjoyed, subscribe
if you’re new, and I’ll see you next time.