AIR TRANSAT: Decent plane food

Air Transat is a charter airline, focusing mainly on sunny destinations in Mexico, the Caribbean, and Florida, as well as major hubs in Europe.

We didn’t really know what to expect, but were pleasantly surprised by the service. Staff were friendly and didn’t slam into aisle passengers with their hips or drink carts (yeah, I’m talkin’ to you, Air Canada).

Mexican music and free champagne after takeoff livened up our outgoing flight to Cancun. They really know how to get you in the mood!

Seats are tight but manageable. No individual TVs, but there were enough monitors to get an unobstructed view of the two in-flight movies. Bathrooms are three in the back, unless you’ve paid $150 to upgrade to Club Class in the front where you get your own terlet.

Hot meals weren’t too shabby; I mean, it is still airplane food. Breakfast was a choice of cheese omelette or eggs Florentine. Really, both were a plain egg omlette with either a cheese and tomato sauce, or a creamy spinach sauce on top. Potatoes on the side were not bad.

A chunky fruit salad was pretty good, as was the plastic-wrapped cinnamon bun, which looked unpromising but turned out to be quite fresh and not too sweet.

On the return flight, dinner consisted of vegetarian pasta (nice and simple), or shepherd’s pie (again, not bad). A side wild rice salad was actually quite refreshing with orange pieces and cranberries. Kids got chicken fingers which looked pretty good.

As the flight droned on, we also got a snack of cheese and crackers, and a juice break during a layover, which I thought was pretty considerate.