Flight Report : AA 4844
Toronto Pearson - New York La Guardia

Pearson's Terminal 3 is fairly quiet as usual. It is not used by Air Canada, the country's largest airline. It is used by oneworld and a few smaller carriers such as Westjet, Transat, and a number of US airlines. Notice there weren't many airplanes parked at the gates that afternoon.

Passengers for American Airlines were seated in a corner right outside the security check. There were 3 flights of passengers, and loading took place one after another as the aircraft pulled in. The first departure was for Boston. The La Guardia flight was second while the JFK flight was last.

Passengers had to descend to the tarmac to board the aircraft. Hand luggage had to be placed on a trolley there as the overhead bins were to small to fit the standard-sized hand luggage.

There were a few lesser-seen visitors to Toronto that day. Harmony is primarily based in Vancouver while Olympic Airways is from Greece.

Due to delays at La Guardia, the flight was not able to leave Toronto since there were no landing slots in New York. As a result, the aircraft pulled into the side next to the runway and parked for about 40 minutes. The crew shut off the engines but the air conditioning was still running. Passengers were allowed to use their cell phones and laptops until clearance was given to take off, which took place at around 3:10pm. Take-off took place after a short taxi at 3:20pm.

The Lake Ontario crossing took only about 10 minutes or so. In fact, I could still see the other side of the lake even after we made the landing in New York state.

In-flight service consists of a free drink (pop/water). Snacks and alcoholic beverages would cost money. The lone flight attendant was quite quick and enthusiastic to deal with a fully-loaded Embraer regional jet (about 30-40 passengers).

The approach to La Guardia from the north was fairly bumpy. Although the skies were generally sunny, it must've been a windy day.

I was really hoping for a southern approach over Lower Manhattan. My window seat would've been perfect to capture some aerials.

Service Summary

Although we were a little late in taking off and the ground delay was annoying, service was actually not bad. The flight attendant knew what he was doing very well and was quite fast and efficient. A lot of the passengers had trouble opening the overhead bins since the doors just roll down instead of pop out like in other conventional aircraft. In the end, we landed 15 minutes behind the scheduled arrival of 4pm.

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