Yeah, sure. They're Canada's biggest charter airline. They pack people in like sardines, but otherwise are perfectly fine. Reliable.

Took 'em to your end of town couple of years ago. That's approx 7.5 hours in the air; Toronto to Dublin to Shannon. Vowed I'd never take 'em for anything longer than that; cramped and airless. But great prices, and as E says, huge operation, pretty darn reliable, if you're good for only travelling on THEIR specific dates.

thanx for gettin back, we booked it already, theres like a kinda 1st class but its not really bit of the plane cost a few hundred extra , u get extra leg room and things like that, anyone gone like this?

You are referring to 'Club Class'. It is a separate section at the front of the plane. The seats are much larger and you get better quality service. Maybe free drinks and better food. I never use it. It is expensive and not, in my view, worth it. If you have bags of money, and don't mind spending it, I'd go for it. But I prefer to use the $$$'s for the vacation itself. One thing about Air Transat is that, in fact, it is NOT a Canadian company at all. It is owned by Transat AT, which is a French company based in Nice. But they do centre their service out of Montreal. Transat AT also owns Canadian Affair and Thomas Cook Airlines as well.

One good thing is that Air Transat now flies exclusively Airbuses. These tend to have more leg room than the Boeings and Tristars they used to fly. Also, they have refigured the seating so you are not packed in as badly as you used to be. If you go to the AirTransat website, and play around in there, you can actually see the 'equipment' flying that day. Since you can prebook your seats, you can actually see which ones are good and not crammed in. My advice though is to sit near the rear of the plane as the configuration on the window side is two seats and not three. However, AirTransat, never one to miss a chance to make money, charges more for bulk head and cross aisle seats and ones with more legroom. Artful Dodgers them!

Trptld, Transat AT is as Canadian as Bombardier. They're a publicly traded company on the TSX (TRZ.A and TRZ.B) and are headquartered in Montreal. See www.transat.com/en/contact/6.0.contact.us.asp or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transat_A.T. .

Sorry, bit late for you but might be useful to someone else reading this thread. We flew their Club Class to Toronto and back.

Bigger, comfy seats at the front. Only a few rows (forget how many exactly) so more personal attention. Meals served on actual china plates etc with drinks. Priority check-in and boarding.

I've used Virgin PE a fair bit and I found the Air Transat service perfectly fine, as did some fellow passengers sitting near us who'd also used Virgin in the past.

I'd certainly do it again.

ebabe

Our upgrade to Club Class has only cost £39 each.

The Globe and Mail's Report on Business Magazine featured an informative cover story about the Transat organization earlier this year. The article can be read online at the following link: http://tinyurl.com/yuhuts

greystoke: I think you got a great deal on your upgrade. We have flown Transat at least 16 times and have always inquired about upgrading to Club Class. It has always been sold out, however, so we've never had the chance to compare the Club cabin to economy class (which has been fine for five-hour flights to southern sun destinations, but verges on torture during the 10-hour+ flights we've taken to/from Greece). Whenever we inquired, we were told Club seats to/from European destinations typically cost $200 CDN each way, with a lower price for seats to the Caribbean and Central America. Transat staff just told me that, for 2009, Club seats on the flights to and from Greece will cost $300 each way.

Hi, donnyb. From what I saw of them when we flew Transat, there were only 4 or 5 rows 2 on each side. Leather seats, definitely wider than the slave class at the back. I vowed that if I ever flew 'em again, I'd ONLY book club, $200 extra notwithstanding. Definitely worth it.

I travelled with them Glasgow - Toronto last year and they were fine. Going we had problems with the films, so we had one film then the tape got chewed so there was nothing to watch after about 3 hours in, but they still keep you occupied with the food / snacks / duty free etc etc.. We paid £180pp rtn for our flights so the fact we even got food etc included I was quite happy with! Espesh considering it cost me £110 ppn rtn to go Glasgow - Berlin with Easyjet and there was no extras!