This was, for a brief, shining moment, the best thing going, and by a long shot, between a North American settlement of any size, and a city in Europe that wasn’t Reykjavik-we’re talking a flight that could at times take less than four hours. John’s to Dublin option has disappeared, sadly. Was this whole WestJet business a one-off, or do we flight-phobic Europhiles-there are dozens of us, surely -have other options? Since then, the St. Related: The Longest Flights in the WorldĪt this point, I was curious. On the flight home, I had a whole row to myself-I worked a five-hour day with my feet up, arriving in Toronto after a chill, Tim Hortons-catered layover in Halifax, feeling like no time had passed at all. Flying to Europe was never something I would dread, ever again. Breezing through customs in Glasgow, I felt as if I had finally cracked the code. The flight departed an empty Halifax airport rather late, everyone was half asleep before we took off, and the whole thing was over before it started. The plane was packed, but I had booked an aisle seat, ahead of time I paid around $240, all in, as I recall. The flight time that evening ended up being a little over 4.5 hours. Halifax, you should know, is a short hop from New York and Boston, and usually a very affordable one, if you plan ahead. In the end, my first transatlantic adventure with WestJet ended up being from Halifax, Nova Scotia to Glasgow, Scotland. And at that time they were, ridiculously so, thanks to the favorable exchange rate. Slowing things down a little sounded like a really nice idea, providing the fares were affordable. It’s being stuck in the air for more than three to four hours at a clip, in coach-that’s the part I still can’t wrap my head around. It’s not the flying I hate, or even dealing with airports, something you can easily get very good at, once you’ve seen the same airport one hundred times. Why not book a nonstop flight from Vancouver to London, you’re thinking, and get it over with? That wasn’t the point. John’s, at the time-my airship had come in. Flight time? Typically less than four hours out, and supposedly not much more on the way back. John’s, Newfoundland, to Dublin, Ireland, on an almost daily basis, if memory serves-the distance is roughly 2,000 miles, which is something like New York to Salt Lake City. I’d never thought of them as a way to get to Europe, and clearly, I’d been missing out. WestJet was already one of my favorite North American airlines, and they often have great fares. Back in 2016, while living in Vancouver, I happened to see an ad for low fares to Europe on WestJet. More recently, the market has opened up-way up. Related: The Most Exciting New Routes in 2020 Unless I had the time to do the old Reykjavik layover shuffle (more on that coming up), there weren’t a lot of cost-effective options. Life is short, but it’s not that short-are we really in that much of a hurry?įor a long time, this meant Europe would typically wait until I could save up for, or get my hands on a Business class ticket, or later on, a slightly less expensive but still quite pricey Premium Economy fare. I don’t even like flying nonstop from New York to Los Angeles, it’s just too long in one very uncomfortable position. As often as I fly to Europe, I’ve never gotten used to the ordeal. The value is there-if you want it.īut do you, really? There are those who can pour themselves into those tiny Economy seats, sleep like they were their own beds, hopping off at Heathrow a few hours later, annoyingly rested and ready. The traveler is now typically offered round-trip fares in the low $300’s, sometimes even less, and not much more than the low $400’s, at least for the moment, right at summer’s peak. Savings-wise, at this point, we cannot really ask for much more from the New York to London route-not if we want these airlines to keep flying, anyway. Fares to and from Europe are almost irresistible, but then there’s the matter of up to seven hours or more in Economy.
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