Return from Portugal. I had booked this flight awhile ago, so it was Porto-Lisbon-Toronto-Calgary. If I was booking again, I would never book so many connections.
Air Canada said be there 4 hours early (although flight was operated by TAP). That seemed excessive, but in the end, I did it, because I thought I'd rather sit for a couple hours than experience problems. I don't know if it was my timing, but I got through security in Porto really fast. And then waited....
Flight from Porto to Lisbon was an hour late, because Lisbon air traffic is nuts right now and the incoming flight was late. Got there and had to take a bus from the plane to the terminal and run to the far end of the airport to catch my connecting AC flight. I had about 40 minutes until the departure of my flight and made it before boarding closed. My seat mate had 20 minutes to connect to an AC Montreal flight and she did not get there before boarding closed.
Flight to Toronto was delayed boarding but we finally did. Then we sat on the plane, ready to go, for an hour, waiting for air traffic control to give us a slot. The way we were parked, our plane basically backed right onto the taxi way, so we were told to stay in our seats, with seatbelts fastened, because when we got the word, we had to leave immediately.
Landed in Toronto and couldn't park, because someone was at our gate. Kept being told they were pushing back at any minute, but we sat for an hour. This time, people were allowed to get up to use the washroom though. At one point, we were told that a plane had broken down and was in our way to get to the gate. Finally got parked and off the plane after an hour (so overall two hours late now). People were told to stay seated if they were finishing in Toronto and let those with connections off first. You had to show an onward boarding pass to leave the plane, so they were enforcing, but most of the plane had connections.
Customs was super fast. I had filled out Arrive Can with both my vaccination status and duty free claim online, so I just showed my slip to the customs agent and was told to go ahead. There were only 3 stations opened, which seemed like a small number, but they processed people quickly and the line moved fast. You don't have to pick up luggage after customs anymore, which helped.
I had a four hour layover originally, which was cut down to two. It would have been just the right amount of time to connect, but then my final flight to Calgary was also delayed two hours. So I ended up going to a restaurant for a meal and a drink.
Way too many hours of travelling and I was exhausted, but overall, nothing horrible. I met a couple from the UK, who were supposed to go London-Montreal-Quebec City, but London-Montreal was cancelled, so they were routed through Lisbon and Toronto instead, and due to that delay, likely missed their Quebec City flight. And the woman on the Porto-Lisbon flight didn't get on her connection to Montreal, so I consider myself pretty fortunate that I did end up on the flights I was supposed to.
I checked a bag in Porto, because the fight for overhead bin space is ten times worse than before covid. I was pleasantly surprised to be reunited with my bag in Calgary (I was prepared for it to follow me home eventually).
|