The food was diabolical! — Elaine Morley

Air Transat is a Canadian airline designed for vacationers on a budget, but I wouldn’t recommend it unless you are in fact a small child.

The flight seems to have been designed expressly for families with small children. There were packets of toys for the kids (at least, I assume that’s why they all had identical plastic airplanes), and the movies were things that children might enjoy.

This is great for families, I suppose, but wasn’t so great for me. I don’t think I’ve ever been on a plane with more screaming babies, nor one that looked so severely trashed when at last we got off. Periodically a small arm would snake back from the seat in front of me and try to grab things from my tray-table. For amusement, I suppose.

The mother of the small-armed-person yelled at the mother of a small-legged-person because the small-legged-person was kicking the back of her seat.

Karmically, I feel this would have justified my complaining about the behavior of her ruffian, but decided not to perpetuate the cycle of violence.

I may also be imagining this, but I think the legroom on Air Transat is as bad as I’ve ever encountered; fortunately there was no one in the middle seat beside me, so I was able to stretch out into that space a bit, but even so, the threat of Deep Vein Thrombosis has never seemed so imminent. I’m not quite sure what I would have done if constrained to keep my feet only in front of my own seat. Passenger reviews at airlinequality.com seem to agree with me on this one. And while I wouldn’t go so far as to call the food the work of Satan, it certainly wasn’t great, either. A couple of meals were served on this long flight, but additional snacks and drinks are charged for. If you can’t afford British Airways or Air Canada, I would recommend the Thomas Cook instead.

And if you’re going to or from London, Air Transat flies through Gatwick, which is another point in its disfavor.