Good morning from London Gatwick Airport!
My name is Alex, and welcome to this trip report!
Today, I’m here at the second busiest airport in the United Kingdom to fly back to Calgary,
Canada on board WestJet’s 787 Dreamliner.
I took this flight back in February of 2020, and I’ve held onto this video for a while
now because it was actually the very last flight I took before things unravelled.
This was my ride home from a larger trip to the UK, where I had flown from Toronto to
Manchester on board Air Transat’s A310 for the first and last time, and then met up with
two fellow aviation enthusiasts for some fantastic plane spotting in the north of England.
Long story short, I eventually made my way to Gatwick for an early morning arrival, with
a creative Ryanair routing.
However, I quickly found out through WestJet’s app that my flight home would be delayed by
nearly three hours.
Add an additional five hours built in from an unnecessarily long connection on my part,
and that meant I would be spending the better part of the day here at Gatwick.
At the time, because this definitely isn’t recent footage, WestJet shared their check-in
area in Gatwick’s North Terminal with easyJet, and they still had the familiar touchscreen
kiosks as they do at home in Calgary.
As you can see, WestJet offered some paid upgrades to Premium and Business for several
hundred pounds.
In Canadian dollars, that was roughly $550 for Premium and $1200 for Business.
I personally really like WestJet’s paid upgrades at check-in, and I’ve bought some
on domestic flights, but given my choice of the exit row, I was happy to stay put in Economy.
Once I got to the bag drop though, I found out I had to spend another 90 minutes pre-security
because bag drop hadn’t opened for the Calgary flight yet.
Thankfully though, the WestJet staff here gave me two meal vouchers worth 15 pounds
each!
In Canadian terms, that’s over 50 dollars worth of free food, and it was very nice having
brunch on WestJet’s dime.
Eventually I made my way through security, and to this central terminal area which is
basically just a mall with airplanes.
Gatwick Airport uses a call-to-gate system, which essentially means that all passengers
are meant to wait in the central area prior to boarding, with the gates showing up on
the boards about 90 minutes prior to departure.
But as you all know, I could not be bothered with any of that, and instead went plane spotting.
So, Gatwick’s North Terminal consists of this main central area, with two piers attached
to it, pier 4 and 5.
Directly south of that are some satellite gates, which they call pier 6.
Connecting the two is a massive 197 meter long bridge.
One side had free passage for all departing passengers, while the other side was dedicated
to arrivals only.
That leads to these insane views as you cross over the apron, and was just the perfect place
for me to kill some time.
I genuinely can’t begin to describe what an experience that is, having planes taxiing
right underneath your feet like that!
Though there wasn’t much going at the gates that I could see from my side of the bridge,
down there is one of WestJet’s 787s, but it’s not my flight specifically.
This is WestJet Flight 4 heading to Toronto, operated by the third 787-9 in the fleet.
At this point, WestJet still only had four Dreamliners, and the next two would be delivered
to them the months following this flight.
In 2021, WestJet will have served London Gatwick for 5 years, give or take some seasonal flight
changes and global crises.
They originally started service here in Spring 2016 with their Boeing 767s.
I was there to see the inaugural flight to London departing from Calgary, so it is kinda
cool to see their operations on the other side of the ocean for once!
If you thought that BA A320 was cool, well, standing above a Dreamliner pushing back and
taxiing out is something else!
Even after that spectacular view, I still had about 4 hours of waiting, so I decided
to check out one of the lounges here.
WestJet Economy passengers don’t normally have lounge access, but I had a pass for today,
so I tried out the No1 lounge.
The lounge was pretty busy, so it was tricky to find a seat.
There were a couple of quiet spaces at least, and in general it was bright and clean, with
a good selection of drinks, food, and of course, apron views!
Just outside the window was this Emirates A380 pushing back for Dubai.
Despite the quintessentially British weather, it’s actually a really good view!
Overall, not a bad airport lounge in the slightest!
The food was great, there was free wifi, and I spent enough time here that my inbound flight
was getting close to landing.
So obviously, I went back up to the bridge to see what I could get, and this Norwegian
787 went right underneath the bridge!
Unfortunately with the call-to-gate system, I had no way of knowing where my flight would
be parking until later, so I’d just have to hope that I could see it.
Finally, here’s my aircraft for today arriving on the inbound flight - WestJet’s second
Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner, registered as Charlie Golf Uniform Romeo Papa.
At the time, this 787 was just under a year old, and according to WestJet, the delay was
due to “unplanned aircraft maintenance”.
Whatever that may have been, I didn’t exactly mind the extra time to explore a new airport!
Eventually, the gate was assigned, and I made my way down to Gate 48.
Once there, there was another waiting area which had plenty of seats.
After getting my boarding pass scanned, there was, you guessed it, one more waiting area
behind the glass where they had people wait before actually going down the jetway.
Not a bad view of our ride over the Atlantic!
My seat for today is in the second Economy Class cabin behind the wing - 26A, an exit
row seat right at door L3.
WestJet’s 787 Economy Class seats 276 passengers in a typical 3-3-3 configuration.
There are some extra legroom seats that can be selected for an additional cost, and this
is one of them.
However, on a transatlantic flight, it will set you back about 100 Canadian dollars, but
you’ll soon see why.
Waiting at each seat is a complimentary water bottle, pillow, and blanket for every Economy
Class passenger.
These exit row seats all have an adjustable headrest, a tray table in the armrest, a literature
pocket in the wall, a universal power outlet underneath the seat, an in-flight entertainment
screen that folds out from between the seats, and this unbelievable amount of legroom!
Row 26 also has this pretty solid wing view.
Also visible from here is what proved to be my favourite spotting location over the past
few hours.
Despite the delay, I think this will have been one of my most memorable airport stopovers.
Soon enough, we pushed back with a fairly full passenger load off to Calgary.
Here’s our departure from Gatwick, off of runway 26L.
After that stunning departure over central London, we’re finally on our way to Calgary
now just over three hours late.
Some of you may know about this, but - a flight from Europe to North America leaving late?
Well that’s why this video is sponsored by the European Union!
No, no it’s not, but let’s just say this flight paid for itself.
WestJet’s inflight entertainment system on the 787s is excellent, with a comprehensive
selection of movies, TV shows, music, reading, games, and of course the detailed moving map.
Each screen also comes equipped with two headphone jacks and a USB port.
The tray table folds out from the armrest, and rests at a comfortable height above my
knees.
Shortly after departure, the cabin crew came around with a snack and drink service, and
I had my usual cup of Coke with a Biscoff.
One thing I really like about WestJet’s transatlantic operations is that they allow
you to book reasonable one-way flights across the ocean, unlike certain legacy airlines
who will only give you reasonable prices if you book a return trip.
In my case, that worked out great since I only needed the one-way flight to get back
to Canada.
I’m really hoping WestJet keeps that policy going forward!
The centre lavatories near the 3rd set of doors have an alright amount of space.
There is plenty of headroom since it’s in the middle of the aircraft, and it was nice
and bright.
I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned this in every WestJet 787 video I’ve made (which
is a lot of them, I’ll admit) but the lavatory walls have this really nice looking gradient
of WestJet deltas.
Connecting flight information was readily available all throughout the flight.
Although I’m all happy to be in an airport for slightly longer than I had planned, having
had to connect in Toronto on my way back to Calgary from Europe plenty of times, I do
feel for those passengers whose days weren’t done yet.
An hour or so into the flight, the cabin crew came around with the complimentary meal service.
I was genuinely curious to see what this was like, since I’ve only ever flown Economy
on WestJet’s 787s domestically, where food service is buy-on-board only.
Today, I went for the, which came with a pasta salad, bread roll, and chocolate pudding for
dessert.
Now, I’ve got no idea who does the catering for WestJet in London, or maybe I’m just
easily impressed, [Editor’s note: YUP]but this was one of the best Economy class meals
I’ve ever had!
The shepherd’s pie was delicious, and I pretty much cleaned out the box.
The bun was also soft and the butter easily spreadable.
For a piece of bread in economy class, it was also surprisingly good!
The pasta salad was also pretty tasty, and the pudding was great as well.
Again, just a genuinely impressive Economy Class meal!
Well done to WestJet!
The sun stayed below the horizon for most of the flight as we chased it across the Atlantic,
and I had a good opportunity to get some sleep.
The pillows that WestJet provided all had these clever WestJet deltas on the pillowcases,
and the blanket was really soft too.
I will just say, the only downside of this seat is that people tend to congregate in
your leg space while waiting for the lavatory.
It’s less of an issue in the window seat since you’re up against the door anyway,
but for the middle and aisle seats, it can definitely be annoying.
Although the sun dipped below the horizon pretty quickly after we took off from London,
there was just enough light to get a peek at the landscape of Greenland and some sea
ice.
About two hours to landing, the crew came around with another drink service and a snack.
In the snack box was a wet wipe (foreshadowing, much), a brownie, a bun, and some tic tacs.
Again, all really tasty and a lot more than I expected to get!
The seatback pocket contents are the same as usual, with WestJet’s 787 safety card,
… air sickness bag,
… the WestJet MasterCard pamphlet,
… and the WestJet Magazine.
Eventually, we crossed the border into Alberta, and the cabin crew handed out the usual WestJet
long-haul pre-arrival special - some maple candies!
Here’s our arrival into Calgary, landing on runway 17L.
So, that was transatlantic Economy Class with WestJet!
It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of WestJet’s 787s in general.
I’d previously flown them to Dublin and back in their Business Class in 2019, and
after that privilege, I was curious to see how their transatlantic Economy Class held
up.
I’m happy to report (at least from when this was filmed) that it very much does!
The 3 hour delay was, I mean, it was inconvenient, but I can think of much worse airports to
spend a couple hours at just being an avgeek!
Also, I can think of a lot of other airports that don’t have a bridge above airplanes!
The crew on board were super friendly as usual, and again, I was pleasantly surprised at the
onboard offering!
Of course, everything changed just weeks after this was filmed, and for me, this flight was
the last time I was outside of Canada (at the time of uploading), so you can see why
this was an important video for me.
As things start to look up again, with cautious optimism, I’m very much looking forward
to flying transatlantic again in the future!
Thank you so much for watching this trip report with WestJet!
Like I said earlier on, this was the very last, quote/unquote, “normal” flight that
I had, so I do appreciate you watching and hopefully you enjoyed the WestJet transatlantic
experience as much as I did.
Take care, and I’ll see you in the next one.