And Another '737 Crossing The Pond

WestJet began daily 737-700 service between St. John's, Newfoundland and London Gatwick last evening (May 7)...taking 4 1/2 hrs to cross:

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/WJA24/history/20160508/0205Z/CYYT/EGKK

This is in addition to their Dublin flight plus add in the Air Canada A319 to Heathrow and it gives St John's 3 daily transatlantic flights. Not bad for a city of 200,000!

Thanks for posting this info.

As I get older, the 8 hours, give or take, to fly from London to New York gets a bit tiresome, so a shorter transatantic flight time would be welcome.

A random comparison of dates seems to indicate not a big saving on fares against the big airlines that fly direct to NYC from London, probably save more by being flexible with travel dates.

Just noticed that this part of Canada is an island, so probably not too convenient for onward travel into Canada and USA ?

Ed.

caravanman said:

Just noticed that this part of Canada is an island, so probably not too convenient for onward travel into Canada and USA ?

Ed.

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The railway across Newfoundland is gone but there's a cross-island bus that connects with the Marine Atlantic ferry....that connects to another bus in Nova Scotia....which eventually connects to VIA’s Ocean.

I've crossed Newfoundland by car.....exploring the abandoned narrow-gauge railway:

http://discuss.amtraktrains.com/index.php?/topic/61734-adventures-along-the-newfoundland-railway/

Thanks for the link to your trip report, very interesting.

Certainly would make for a different way to reach North America... Probably best done in summertime. I will look into those transport options to reach The Ocean train!

Thanks again,

Ed.

According to Google Maps, From St. Johns to Baltimore is a 6 hour flight (involving a change of planes in Toronto) or 37 hours of driving (3,005 km), including a 9 hour ferry crossing and a border crossing. Plus getting to drive right through New York City.

(By the way, the drive from Baltimore to LA is 39 hours, which gives you an idea of how far St. Johns is from the main cities of the North American East coast. Of course, you don't have to take a ferry to drive from Baltimore to LA.)

Great news!! I've been looking at taking the Air Canada flight for years and I'm very pleased that there's now another option. Yes, I do live in Phoenix, but Newfoundland is a very special place that I love visiting ( my grandmother was from Coley's Point which is near Bay Roberts which is 50 or so miles outside of St. John's). When I'm forced to move there if the Apocalypse happens and we elect Der Donald, it's good to know there's multiple ways to get to England.

BWI-YYT (St. John’s) is 1300 miles 'as the plane flies'

BWI-LAX is 2300 miles

Up until a month ago you could fly nonstop from Newark to St John's on United in 3 hrs. It now requires a connection in Halifax.

I remember when 737s were strictly "short-hop"...remember California's PSA?

I learned otherwise when I did an LAX > BOS non-stop on a 737 a while back!

I did Stuttgart to Newark on a Privatair 737 BBJ flying with a Lufthansa flight number sometime around 2007 IIRC. So 737s have been flying across the pond for a while now.

jis said:

I did Stuttgart to Newark on a Privatair 737 BBJ flying with a Lufthansa flight number sometime around 2007 IIRC. So 737s have been flying across the pond for a while now.

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Sounds about right. I remember scheduled 737 services over the Atlantic was big news in the airliner community about a decade ago. My prior experience with CBSA and ACSTA has done enough to put me off unnecessary Canadian connections in the future. Luckily for me the US is home to the world's largest airline market, with about a dozen significant gateways with scheduled services to nearly every part of the globe, so it's hard to imagine a situation where connecting in Canada would be much of a benefit anyhow. I can understand the desire to shorten segment lengths but being stuck with a thin service barebones connecting point would seem to defeat the purpose of making the trip simpler and easier. Witnessing Southwest Airlines initiate scheduled overwater flights to international destinations in own-mental aircraft was the final domino for me. Now I feel like I've seen everything. :blink:

British Airways operates a flight between JFK and London City (LCY) using an Airbus A318 configured with 37 Club World seats - one and one. That is pretty much pushing the range envelope for that model aircraft (similar to a 737), to the point that westbound bucking the headwinds makes a fuel stop in Shannon, Ireland.

caravanman said:

Just noticed that this part of Canada is an island, so probably not too convenient for onward travel into Canada and USA ?

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Correct, as others have noted, not terribly convenient for onward travel, though a spectacular destination in its own right.

Another option for a shorter TATL hop would be London to Halifax (YHZ) on an Air Canada 767. It's roughly 90 minutes shorter than LON-NYC, and there are plenty more onward flights to the US/Canada from YHZ than from St. John's (plus there's USA customs pre-clearance in Halifax).

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On the topic of 737's crossing the ocean, there's a WestJet flight from Glasgow to Halifax that uses a 737.

PRR 60 said:

British Airways operates a flight between JFK and London City (LCY) using an Airbus A318 configured with 37 Club World seats - one and one. That is pretty much pushing the range envelope for that model aircraft (similar to a 737), to the point that westbound bucking the headwinds makes a fuel stop in Shannon, Ireland.

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Actually it is a bit more complicated. The core problem is that on most days it would be able to make it across if the LCY runway was long enough for it to take off with max weight. But alas it is not. Hence the regular stop at Shannon.

Because it is a J only configuration, the payload it carries is quite a bit less than what a fully two or three class configured plane would. Actually it is even more sparsely furnished than the Privatair 737 that was also all J was furnished that I flew in from Stuttgart to EWR, and that had no problem making it with its additional tank in the rear hold area or something like that; so even less payload.

I cannot see the logic of someone choosing to go from New York to London, or similar, by "puddle-jumping" their way across the Atlantic to "minimize their segment time"....

If doing it for a lark, or just for the experience, fine.....but if doing it to make their journey more tolerable....well....I can't see it. Each change of aircraft, takeoff, and landing, generate their own modicum of stress for some traveler's....it would be better in the long run, to just, well....make the long run....that is go nonstop.

railiner said:

If doing it for a lark, or just for the experience, fine.....

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I did it the first year Air Canada started sending the A319s to Heathrow from St John’s......and as you say I did it 'for a lark' just to experience crossing on a narrow body twin as I could just as easily have taken a ‘767 from Halifax.

Of late, for just going to Europe, I have crossed the Atlantic more often on a narrow body twin (757) than on anything else, until finally this year United started upgrading everything (except the truly secondary cities) to 767, 777 and 787. Of course crossing the Atlantic for going to Asia Israel and India) has always been on 777s, 747s or 380s.

The only time I did 737 was on that trip to and from Stuttgart from/to Newark. That flight does not exist anymore, and instead for a while there was a 757 to Stuttgart. I don't know if it is still there.

jis said:

PRR 60 said:

British Airways operates a flight between JFK and London City (LCY) using an Airbus A318 configured with 37 Club World seats - one and one. That is pretty much pushing the range envelope for that model aircraft (similar to a 737), to the point that westbound bucking the headwinds makes a fuel stop in Shannon, Ireland.

Click to expand...

Actually it is a bit more complicated. The core problem is that on most days it would be able to make it across if the LCY runway was long enough for it to take off with max weight. But alas it is not. Hence the regular stop at Shannon.

Because it is a J only configuration, the payload it carries is quite a bit less than what a fully two or three class configured plane would. Actually it is even more sparsely furnished than the Privatair 737 that was also all J was furnished that I flew in from Stuttgart to EWR, and that had no problem making it with its additional tank in the rear hold area or something like that; so even less payload.

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I also thought that this particular BA flight uses the stop in Shannon to have the passengers clear US Customs and Immigration there and allow the plane to land at JFK as a domestic flight thus avoiding the hell that is customs at JFK.

Yes, that is the incidental additional advantage. Since they had to stop somewhere to pick up enough fuel to make it to New York, they might as well make it worth the while for their customers while they are at it.

A throwback to the busy days at Gander, eh?

jis said:

Yes, that is the incidental additional advantage. Since they had to stop somewhere to pick up enough fuel to make it to New York, they might as well make it worth the while for their customers while they are at it.

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Does it actually help? I've read a lot of negative reviews about how preclearance sounds great at first but can often move even slower than a conventional clearance line and usually dumps you into a sterile holding pen with little or nothing to see or do until boarding. I've also read how preclearance often allows one person's random CBP problem to hold up everyone traveling on the same aircraft so they can try to sort it out before departure. I've only had one preclearance entry myself, and honestly didn't think it was that bad, but in general I tend to avoid them based on the comments of others.

I suppose compared to the hell hole that the BA terminal at JFK is anything else is better. Clearing a light 737 with 50 odd passengers to clear should be pretty quick.

Devil's Advocate said:

jis said:

Yes, that is the incidental additional advantage. Since they had to stop somewhere to pick up enough fuel to make it to New York, they might as well make it worth the while for their customers while they are at it.

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Does it actually help? I've read a lot of negative reviews about how preclearance sounds great at first but can often move even slower than a conventional clearance line and usually dumps you into a sterile holding pen with little or nothing to see or do until boarding. I've also read how preclearance often allows one person's random CBP problem to hold up everyone traveling on the same aircraft so they can try to sort it out before departure. I've only had one preclearance entry myself, and honestly didn't think it was that bad, but in general I tend to avoid them based on the comments of others.

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I've used pre-clearance at Canadian airports many times, and it's been easy and quick. Mostly there are similar amenities available airside as there are for domestic flights.

I've actually used pre-clearance in SNN, though that was 14 years ago and was for a flight originating at SNN, so not really the same as the LCY-SNN-JFK example. I can see how a "rogue" passenger may slow things up (sort of like on the Adirondack or the Maple Leaf, I suppose) but the vast majority of preclearance flights do not follow this pattern of using preclearance as a fueling stopover on a longer flight.

For the Canada-originating flights, there doesn't seem to be any waiting around for people to clear CBP...you're either there for the departure or you're not. But that's simply my perception...I don't actually know that to be the case.

railiner said:

A throwback to the busy days at Gander, eh?

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LOL yes! When we went to Newfoundland my mother was talking about Gander's airport, unfortunately the highway more or less bypasses the town so we didn't get to see it.

One of my former coworkers was stranded in Gander for 3 days flying back from a week of partying in the Balearics on 911. He said the locals were lovely to the stranded passengers.

The west coast of Newfoundland is lovely - looks a bit like Norway's west coast, Gros Morne in particular. Plus all the viking sites to see... I don't remember the ferry being 9 hours though. I read something recently about shelved plans for a fixed link - rail, like the Channel Tunnel - connecting Newfoundland to the mainland via Labrador..

BTW are there direct flights to France from St. Pierre?

Metra Electric Rider said:

BTW are there direct flights to France from St. Pierre?

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As far as I can tell, there isn't. Apparently only a single outfit called Air St. Pierre flies there, and it does so from four or so locations in Canada including Montreal, once or twice a week. Those are its international flights. Surprisingly it also has a domestic flight to Miquelon 6 days a week. It is a 15 min flight. One way fare from Montreal is north of $600. The other locations in Canada that are connected to are Halifax, St. Johns and Sydney.

Devil's Advocate said:

I've read a lot of negative reviews about how preclearance sounds great at first but can often move even slower than a conventional clearance line and usually dumps you into a sterile holding pen with little or nothing to see or do until boarding. I've also read how preclearance often allows one person's random CBP problem to hold up everyone traveling on the same aircraft so they can try to sort it out before departure. I've only had one preclearance entry myself, and honestly didn't think it was that bad, but in general I tend to avoid them based on the comments of others.

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I had no issues using the relatively new preclearance facility at Dublin a few years ago. The lines were of reasonable length, and the post-customs gate area had at least one newsstand/snack shop. (If I recall correctly, there are 6-8 gates there -- it's much bigger than the term "holding pen" would imply.)