2025.10 UK & More – Flight to London

2025.10 UK & More – Flight to London

She unilaterally declared after our 2023 trip to Europe “No more flying in economy for an overnight flight.”  Uh oh.  How can I meet this rule and get us to the UK for two weeks?  Find the only daytime transatlantic flight from Canada, of course!

Plan

The plan for this trip begun during our 2023 trip to England, when Little Miss joked to one of her relatives “Why not get married in fall of 2025?  We’ll come to it!”.  Once the save-the-date notice came out, we knew this trip was going to occur.  Unlike our prior visits, we both wanted to see England that wasn’t London.  To make sure we could visit relatives, get to the wedding, visit family friends and a bonus family item, it turned out two weeks was a reasonable amount of time.  I was able to book our transatlantic flights using Aeroplan points, and I was happy to fulfill the requirement of no overnight flight in economy. Unlike our honeymoon, or our trip in 2017 where Air Canada offered a non-stop daytime flight from Toronto to London Heathrow; post-COVID pandemic, the flight had morphed into a Halifax to London Heathrow flight.  In fairness to those who live in the Maritimes, this makes sense as who wants to back-track west for a couple hours as part of a transatlantic flight to connect in Montreal or Toronto?

Once we arrive in London Heathrow we’d rent a vehicle for the two weeks and play keep-away relative to London.  Drive around, near, or by it, but not to stop in it at all.

Obviously, being the completely helpful planner I tagged on a flight to Amsterdam so that we could have Dim Sum, and then visit my relatives in Germany.  Like we have in 2018, 2021, or 2022, they are close to the Netherlands and we love to visit them.  Our return flight was something new, United Airlines Polaris to Newark, and then a connecting flight on Air Canada to Toronto.

Plaza Premium & Toronto Departure

The upside of this schedule actually had us on the same aircraft for both legs of the flight.  First up, was check-in.  As we were flying to the UK, there was an electronic visa check that required us to visit a check-in agent.  The wait wasn’t long, and soon enough we were waiting at the Plaza Premium Lounge for its 5:30am opening time with a handful of other travelers.

Once open, we were inside quickly and made a light breakfast.  Most importantly, as usual for Little Miss, was the importance of a cup of tea to start the day.

Here is  slideshow of pictures that I took from the lounge, including the buffet area:

With a 6:30am departure we didn’t stay long and made our way to the gate soon enough.

This flight was not full, and the best part for us was that we didn’t have a passenger assigned to seat 20B.

Toronto to Halifax (YYZ-YHZ), Boeing 737 Max
AC600, Seats 20A, 20C
Scheduled departure: 06:30am
Scheduled arrival: 09:39am (local time)

Once on board, I was happy to have selected not only emergency exit row seats for the transatlantic portion, but also for this shorter flight.  The seat choice was excellent — this is the second row of emergency exits on the 737, so it has the combination of more legroom, and the seats in front do not recline, and if needed (and I didn’t use it at all) was that our seats had recline available.

Pushback was early, but a ground tour of Pearson took place before arriving at the northwest corner of the airport for an easterly departure from runway 05. Once in the air, flight attendants passed through the cabin with complimentary beverages, and snacks.  Then a buy-on-board selection past through the cabin starting from the front.  Given the time was closer to my usual breakfast time, I chose to have a breakfast sandwich.  It won’t win any culinary awards, but was filling for the flight.

The flight was smooth, and I was able to watch a movie from the IFE.  Soon enough, our flight begin its descent and approach to Halifax International Airport. 

During the approach I was impressed with the turn seemingly lined up to the edge of the Halifax harbour in order to line up for the runway.

Upon arrival at the gate, we had to wait for ground staff.  In all, the delay was probably about 15 minutes as we were off the plane around 9:50am.  During this short break, I took on a very easy challenge — walk the length of the terminal.

It’s wasn’t a difficult challenge.  The airport reminded of Toronto’s former Terminal 2 — a building from the 1970s with lower ceilings, and setup to be a long rectangle.  The walk was a good chance before the longer portion of our flight.  We made a few calls, she grabbed something to drink and we returned to the same gate for our onward flight to London.  Here’s a slideshow from a few highlights during our walk:

Air Canada Halifax to London (Heathrow) (YHZ-LHR)

Flight Number AC868, Boeing 737 Max
Seats 20 A&C
Scheduled departure: 11:00
Scheduled arrival: 21:00

This time around the plane was noticeably closer to capacity.  For us, we got the best news as the “boarding complete” announcement was made — there was no passenger in our middle seat.  Somehow out of the 4 emergency exit row groups, ours was the only one not at capacity. 

Announcements began just as pushback began right at 11am local time.  Once the engines were running, the plane taxied to the runway and took off without any delay, nor waiting for other aircraft.  It felt like the airport was waiting for this flight to take off before any other flights would be handled.  Our climb out was slow, I expected it given it’s blocked out at as a six hour flight.  An hour into the flight meal service began.  Having an extra tray table for us to use was excellent as we had plenty of additional items that wanted tray table real estate.

The chicken was fine, and given the lack of competing meals earlier in the day it was filling.  The salad was good, and I cannot remember if the bread roll or brownie were the carb filled winner of the meal.

Now an important note about flying a narrow body plane across the Atlantic vs. wide-body.  It seems noticeable that you’re in a smaller aircraft.  Although this flight didn’t have any major, or noteworthy turbulence, it did seem to follow or move with air pockets.  She did not like that at all, as she remarked after we landed “new rule.  No, smaller planes [narrow-body?] across the Atlantic.”

Also, being a 737 Max plane, the design certainly is to minimize any space that cannot be sold as a seat, case in point the crew work areas at the front and back of the plane, and the lavatories at the rear of the plane.  I’m aware I’m not an average sized individual, however the space in the washroom is less than my shoulder width, and the hair on my head was gently touching the ceiling.  It made me wonder if the lavatory on a Boeing 717 was more spacious.

Lights were dimmed after meal service concluded, and I cannot recall when during the flight the sun did set.  For the rest of the flight I settled in and watch some tv shows, and movies to pass the time.  90 minutes before scheduled arrival, snack service started.

That’s right.  The snack service was a bun that felt like it was left out to go stale.  The filling was supposedly chicken, but given the extra drying feature of the bun, there wasn’t much flavour in the sandwich at all.  The pretzel snack was excellent.

After the snack was cleared the flight deck gave their 30 minute warning as our plane began its descent towards London.  The approach was interesting as it felt like our plane had specific spots to occupy, but that was easily handled and the flight crew had our plane touching down on the northside runway just before 9pm.  Arrival at the gate followed and by 9:10pm we were making the long walk from the satellite portion of terminal 2 to the main portion for passport control and baggage pick-up.

Upon arrival at passport control there was no wait and our luggage was appearing at the first baggage carousel after entering the baggage hall.  Once reunited with our luggage we found the pick-up stand outside where we had a friendly and talkative driver who drove us to the rental compound just north of the airport.  When we were assigned our vehicle we were gifted an automatic transmission!  Once settled in the Nissan Qashqai, sitting on the right side of the car to drive, I made the short drive to our hotel into a 25 minute expedition that had me making at least three errors.  Her patience disappeared after the first mistake.

Explore other parts of this trip:

Part 1 – Air Canada Flight Toronto to Halifax, to London (this post!)

Part 2 – Hilton Garden Inn, Heathrow

Part 3 – Best Western Abbots Barton Hotel, Canterbury

Part 4 – Dover Castle

Part 5 – Canterbury Cathedral & Abbey

Part 6 – Hilton Garden Inn, Silverstone

Part 7 – Hardwick Hall

Part 8 – Newcastle Upon Tyne Doubletree Hotel 

Part 9 – Alnwick Gardens

Part 10 – Corbridge Roman Town

Part 11 – Premier Inn Penrith

Part 12 – Castlerigg Stone Circle & Lake District

Part 13 – Hilton Garden Inn Manchester

Part 14 – Isle of Wight

Part 15 – Carisbrooke Castle

Part 16 – Osborne

Part 17 – Heathrow Terminal 4 Hilton

Part 18 – Flight to Amsterdam, Hilton Dusseldorf

Part 19 – Doubletree NDSW Amsterdam

Part 20 – Mauritshuis, The Hague 

Part 21 – Hilton AMS

Part 22 – Flight home via Newark