Review of Porter Airlines flight from Toronto to Halifax in Economy

【 High expectations 】

Hello and welcome to the first Flight Report (FR) in my Easter trip!

I'm publishing this series (slightly) out of order. This FR is actually the 2nd leg of my trip from Porto to Halifax via Toronto on Air Transat and Porter. I'm writing this FR first because the Air Transat one requires me to process some photos on my main PC at home, except I'm away for quite a while. I'm also way too impatient to wait until then, so here we are… 

But anyways, this FR will be my 3rd one on Porter - I flew with them twice in 2023. Back then, I flew 4 hours from Toronto to Edmonton just to try out the airline's (then) new Embraers. That was, and still is, one of the best flights I've taken (check out that FR here). Now, two years later, Porter's Embraer fleet has grown to over 50, with another 20 on order (as of the making of this FR). Needless to say, I'm going into this flight with fairly high expectations, and I'm very curious to see what the airline is like 2 years later. 

As for price,  I paid CA$580 ($417, €361) for the 'Eco Standard' fare flying from Porto to Halifax via Toronto on Air Transat and Porter, which includes 23kg checked luggage but not seat selection. Adding that brought the total to CA$679 ($488, €423), which, believe it or not, is by far the cheapest option to go from Europe to Halifax. 

I aim to offset all of my CO2 emissions from flights. All emissions are calculated using the ICAO Carbon Emissions Calculator, and I will be funding projects approved by The Gold Standard.

【 Toronto Pearson International Airport 】

Like Air Transat, Porter uses Terminal 3. 

Photo of the check-in area, I had 6 hours here in Toronto so I got the UP Express to downtown - although it was raining, so I wasn't able to do much.

Photo of the apron. Terminal 1 is on the left (with all the Air Canadas) and T3 on the right. You've got some interesting planes, like a Caribbean Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8 to Port of Spain (POS), Trinidad and Tobago, via Georgetown (GEO), Guyana (the plane behind the WestJet). You also have a Biman Bangladesh Airlines Boeing 787-9 heading to Dhaka (DAC) via Rome (FCO). Finally, at the back is a stripy Condor Airbus A330neo to Frankfurt (FRA). 

The check-in area for Air Transat. 

Security took around 10 minutes, and here's the duty-free area. 

There's a good number of stores here. 

The gates - it's pretty crowded, like all the other times I've been here. 

【 The flight 】

Flight time to Halifax will be under 2 hours and here's our route:

Boarding started around 20 minutes late. Quick photo of the seats.

Seatback pocket and tray table. 

Porter's Embraer 195 E2s have an all economy configuration with 132 seats. 

Pitch: 30" except for rows 1-4 and 13-14 (exit rows), which have 36". 
Width: 18” 
Recline: 2", except for rows 1-4, which have 6"

As you can see, legroom is average. 

There are also two 110V universal power outlets, which is nice since you don't have to share with your neighbour. 

View out of the window.

Porter's Embraers are known for their misaligned windows. In fact, looking at Aerolopa.com, rows 5-12, 17-24, and 27-33 have a pretty awkward window alignment - they're either too far back or too far forward. The only reason row 25 is fine is because of the large gap between rows 24 and 25 (see below). Honestly, Aerolopa is super helpful for me to get a good window seat for my FRs. 

Pushback around 25 minutes late with the aforementioned Caribbean Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8 also departing. 

A Saudia Boeing 787 heading to Jeddah (JED) and a British Airways Boeing 787 heading to London (LHR). If you're curious what a Saudia long haul is like on their 787s, check out my FR here. 

Takeoff after a pretty long taxi. 

You can (just about) see the outline of Downtown Toronto in the distance (where all the skyscrapers are).

It was a pretty dull flight scenery-wise with clouds all the way to Halifax. 

Let's have a look at the contents of the seaback pocket. It includes an air-sickness bag (not pictured), a safety card…

… And a promo about a Porter credit card. There's also a guide on how to connect to the Wi-Fi, but that was available online, so I took a screenshot instead (it's much easier to read than me photographing it in bad lighting haha). 

Sunset somewhere around the Canada-USA border. 

 
Let's have a look at the Wi-Fi onboard. Below is the digital version of the guide in the seatback pocket. 

All passengers can watch ads to get a 30-minute session (my understanding is that you can keep doing that for the entire flight, although I didn't try it), and VIPorter members get it ad-free for the entire flight. 

The full menu is also available online. Because this flight is below 2.5 hours, hot meals aren't available. 

Shortly after, the crew came around with a choice of snacks. I picked the shortbread cookie. I should also mention that due to turbulence, hot drinks won't be served, and drinks will only be served in paper cups - Porter normally uses glassware for that, which is really nice. 

Oh, and the tray table is a bit broken, which is interesting since this aircraft (C-GKYI) was only 9 months old at the time of the flight.

It was a pretty bumpy/dull descent (my phone camera couldn't even focus on anything outside, so all the photos were terrible). But anyway, welcome to a very foggy Halifax! We arrived around 10 minutes late. 

Photo of the de-icing pad… or at least the floodlights around it. 

Parked at the gate. 

【 Halifax Stanfield International Airport 】

Passing by the gates on the way to baggage reclaim. 

The airport is pretty much deserted this late.

Welcome to Halifax! I've wanted to come here for a while (mainly for personal reasons), so it's super nice to finally be here. ;)

The baggage reclaim area. 

And the rest of the arrivals area. 

I'll end this FR here. I took an Uber to the city (which took around 30 minutes and cost me CA$50). The next FR in this series will cover the first leg on Air Transat… when I finally get back home. Thanks for reading, and see you there!