Finally fed up with Air Canada and their tendency to underserve customers at every step of the journey, including telling outright lies, and stranding passengers in the wrong state, I felt it was time to make a change. AC's unwillingness to give my sister a $20 voucher to cover transportation from LaGuardia to Midtown Manhattan (not even to Newark, where her ticket was for) cost them $200 in revenue from me this past weekend. This is why Air Canada is hemmoraging money. Anyway... Up at 6:00 for a 9:20 departure; metro, bus, bus, and at the airport at 7:15. Check in with Continental (handled by Northwest's ground staff at Dorval), request something closer to the front than 17A, but it falls on deaf ears. Eeh. Head on up to the public lounge; I can see an AC Spazz 146 (yellow), and what must be close to the entire fleets of Air Inuit and Air Creebec going out on their 7:30 bank :> (It was 2 Inuit Dash 8s; Creebac had a DH8 and a 1900D). There was also the TACA A320 going out, as was the Nolinor Convair, which now only says "Cargo" in big green letters. Did a little reading for a paper on Crown Heights that I've got to do this week, and headed off to do formalities around 8:20. Bought the AIF ticket, cleared Customs in 3 minutes, and went through security. As usual, I put everything from my pockets in my coat pocket, and sent it through along with my backpack. I'm met at the end of the conveyor belt. "<something in French>." "Desole, je ne parle..." "You've got someting h'electronic in your bag." "It's in my coat." "No, no, it's small, square, h'electronic, in your bag." "I know, but it's in my coat." She goes back and has a hurried conversation with the machine operator. "Ah, yes, it's in your coat." And I show it to her, flip the power switch, and continue. I don't get tabbed for the checked luggage search, probably since I don't have any checked luggage. Head down towards transborder, and get pointed towards the tunnel that leads to the Aeroquay, since CO's normal gates are blocked by construction equipment for the new transborder finger. I take a rest on the moving walkway, soothed by the bird sounds that Aeroports de Montreal pipes in. I arrive at the gate just as the inbound is unloading. I wait a few minutes, and ask the gate agent if I can change my seat. He replies that he hasn't set up the gate yet, and to come back in 20 minutes. I oblige, return at the appointed hour, and get 3A, although he writes my new seat and last name on the Customs declaration form (which, interestingly enough, has the names and birthdates of our crew - Captain Bart is 34, the FO is 28, and Mary, our FA is 48. Boarding is called right on time for... Friday, March 29 Continental Express 4165 YUL-EWR ERJ-145 N15912 (delivered May, 2001) Sched: 920-1055 Actual: 920-1034 Gate:29 Seat:3A Class: Q Fare: 141USD (one-way) Advance purchase: 7 days Load: 29/50 I board in the last group, and am not singled out for searching, which is a minor miracle, considering I'm an 18-30 male flying alone, on a one-way ticket, with no checked luggage. I settle into 3A, squeeze my coat into the overhead over the two-seat side (gosh, those things are small), and deftly slide my backpack under the seat. The other pax are mostly on, save for a guy who somehow lost his BP somewhere between the terminal and the airport, and a woman who can barely walk (and speaks only Spanish) who is assisted on the plane, placed in the 3BC side, and promptly whacks her head on the overhead bin. The door is closed at 920, and we push at 923 (as a Hydro-Quebec Convair is departing). Mary interrupts her announcements to buckle the Spanish lady's seat belt. I apologized to the FA later on for forgetting all of my Spanish, and not being able to be of any help, but fortunately, all of row 4 speaks Spanish. She puts in a CD that contains the safety audio, and does the demo. There's no French anywhere on this flight, the demo is English-only, announcements are English-only, and the markings in the place are English and Spanish. Off 24R at 93, and we fly almost parallel down the St. Lawrence for a few minutes before turning south. It's a clear day with a few scattered clouds, and we're pretty low (there was no announcement, but we were closer to 16,000 than FL290, my 2 previous reference points). I pick up our course on the sectional over the Lake George area, and follow it down the Hudson for nearly the entire flight (pausing to fly over some little clouds, and to admire 4 perfect echelons of northbound migrating birds that we pass near Newburgh). Entered Newark's airspace as usual around the Sparta VOR/Greenwood Lake area, flew over Fair Lawn (read the water tower), and to the 24 threshold at Teterboro. Instead of turning to intercept the final approach course for 22 as is customary there, we remained straight, and turned much later, almost over Secaucus. Continued descending over some port facilites, and by this time I'm totally disoriented. Lower the gear right before the Pulaski Skyway, and then it all makes sense. A couple of seconds after the bridge, Captain Bart makes a wide, sweeping right turn, and sets us up on short final for runway 29, where we're on at 1028, for a kick-ass in-air time of 57 minutes. Long rollout to where Terminal C is, and we pull into gate 123 at 1034, blocking in a good 21 minutes early. I'm due to take the 11:27 train back to my hometown (even though I could have made the 10:58 easily), so I dawdle leaving Terminal C, a place where I hadn't been since December 1997. The terminal was fixed up very impressively, I helped myself to a copy of the Economist from CO's free magazine rack (an exemplary customer-service touch - also made up the extra that I paid by taking CO instead of AC), and hopped the monorail over to A just to see what I could see (an ATA753 using Spirit's old gate 20). Got a cup of coffee from the Green Mermaid o'Death (I had $22US, the other coffee place was 1.89 + tax, Jojo's place was 1.75+tax, and I didn't want to break the 20), and then started the 7-minute monorail over to the train station. Chatted with a Canadian guy on the way over about McGill, Montreal, etc, and I helped him onto an NYC-bound train, as I took a southbound one. All in all, I was very impressed by Continental, I was met with professionalism every step of the way, and I truly got the feeling that CO was a company who realized that without their customers, they're nothing. When my only complaint was that the ERJ is a little loud, I think I can safely say that I've found a company that deserves my business in the future. Matthew :)