I took the UP Express train to go from Union Station to Pearsons Airport – very practical and reasonably priced at 12 C$ per person. My flight from Toronto to San Salvador was marketed by Avianca but was operated by LACSA on a Star Alliance livery aircraft (my connecting flight from Salvador to Managua had TACA flight number but was operated by Avianca). Anyway, my flight was departing from Terminal 1 in Toronto – a very nice, airy terminal. I was checked-in in two minutes.
Avianca uses the Air Canada lounge. There wat not so many people at this time of the day so the lounge seemed quite spacious. There was also a choice of hot food – simple but perfectly fine. There were of course also several types of wines and other alcohols. The lounge also had showers (I didn’t try them).
My aircraft today was an A319.
This aircraft had 3 rows in business class with a 2+2 configuration. The load today was 10/12. The seats had a good legroom. The seats didn’t look new but were comfortable. A headset and a kit were already on the seat.
The flight attendant introduced herself, asked if I spoke Spanish or English and offered me water, orange juice or sparkling wine and nuts.
One hour into the flight a hot towel was offered. A few minutes later food was served. There was no printed menu but I was simply asked if I wanted fish, beef or chicken. The starter was eggplant with mushroom. I choose beef with rice and salad as a main course. There was also cheese with quince. All these was served on one plate. There was also a choice of two different types of wine. The starter was too oily for my taste but quite good. The beef was prepared in a sort of Chinese way and was tasty. The cheese was simple but OK. A few minutes later a cake was served which looked good but tasted very industrial. Altogether my meal was quite good but certainly not outstanding.
After lunch I browsed the IFE. The screen was small and the flight map didn’t work. There was a choice of maybe twenty or so films, mostly older ones but I could find I was happy to see again. The choice of music was not big (maybe 20 albums or so plus a playlist with one Beatles song, one Queen song and so on, a lot of latino musics, and a surprising number of operas).
Towards to flight a snack was offered – cheese and ham wrap.
Nice report!! The food offered on the Maple Leaf lounge seemed very tasty. Also, despite the IFE, AV appears to offer a very nice product in Business.