Montreal Pierre Elliott Trudeau / Dorval

I took the bus 747 from downtown Montreal to the airport. The ride was fast and there was no traffic jam and the bus not overly crowded.

I had already used online check in in the morning and printed the boarding passes in the business center of my hotel. So I went straight to security and immigration. Security had no lines at all and I passed security in seconds, but was again told to store my shoulder bag as only two items were allowed.

Immigration took a bit longer than usual, but less than ten minutes. Questioning was easy but slightly different questions this time. My passport was stamped and I headed for the Maple Leaf Lounge in the transborder area of Montreal’s Pierre Elliott Trudeau Airport.

The lounge was empty and I had not problem to find an empty seat. I grabbed something to drink from the fridge and started my laptop and put some time in this trip reports, checked e-mails and moderated a few thread on flyertalk. Time passed quickly and soon boarding time was approaching. A last check on the screens, and I was on the way to the gate. On my way, I looked on the screens and my flight was now showing a delay of 30 minutes. Strange, usually flightstats is good with notifications about delays but not so this time. So I went back to the lounge, where I spent the next couple of minutes. In the meantime US Airways had called me and informed me about the delay of my flight.

My layover in Philadelphia was long, so there was no need to worry about a misconnection. Boarding started at 13:45 with First Class passengers and passengers, who needed some more time. I was among the first persons to board the plane.

20 February 2012
YUL – PHL
[Montreal Pierre Elliott Trudeau / Dorval – Philadelphia International]
US 3423 (US Airways); Embraer 170 (N804MD) (operated by Republic Airways)
Gate C 80
13:30 – 15:18 [effective 14:02 – 15:53 ]
First Class
Seat 02 A

One of the two flight attendants asked about our choice of pre departure drinks. This time is was only non-alcoholic drinks as the request for a glass of wine of one of the passengers was declined by the crew member serving the first class cabin.
6 out of 9 seats were taken in the first class cabin.


The cabin filled with passengers and soon boarding was completed. The safety demonstration was done while we were still at the gate with an United Airways Express plane at the next gate. Push back was approximately 30 minutes delayed and finally done at 14:02 and we taxied to the runway 24, where we had to wait after a few planes ahead of us took off and a few others had landed.

While we waited, time to give some information of this Embraer 170-100 SU. The plane was delivered to MidAtlantic Airways on March 11, 2004. MidAtlantic Airways was a Pittsburg regional airline, a subsidiary of US Airways and operating flights as US Airways Express. During the last US Airways bankruptcy, MidAtlantic Airways sold it shares to Republic Airways and so was the plane transferred to Republic Airways. Since the plane is still operated for US Airways Express the registration remained the same. The plane is leased from GECAS. GECAS (GE Capital Aviation Services) is a unit of GE Capital and the biggest airplane lessors with a fleet of over 1800 aircraft. The most leasing contracts are short term and the company buys planes from Airbus and Boeing itself but also from airlines and lease the planes back to them.
The plane is equipped with GE CF34-8E5 engines like the Embraer 175 I flew into Montreal.
The plane was delivered with 72 seats in an all Economy Class configured but retrofitted with 9 First Class seats and reducing the seats in Economy Class to 60 seats. Seat pitch and width are the same as on the Embraer 175.

At 14:25 the captain finally powered the engines and we climbed into the sunny Canadian sky. Approximately after ten minutes the crew began the service. The first impression of this crew was that they were not as good as their colleagues on my flight into Montreal the Thursday before. Announcements by both crew and flight deck were shorter and only the basic information was given and no announcement was made in French language.

I opted for a ginger ale and the basket with snacks like chips and cookies was offered as well.

The flight was uneventful and flight time of 1:40 passed quickly. We had already begun the final descend into Philadelphia as the flight attendant serving the first class cabin asked us for connection and gave us the gates he had on his list. No announcement was made for the remaining cabin.

We touched down around 15:35 at Philadelphia International Airport and had to wait as our gate B 8 was not yet ready and blocked by another airplane. We had to taxi a few times to let other planes pass.

Finally the gate was free and we were cleared to taxi to the gate where were arrived at 15:53.

I was able to deboard quite quickly and headed to the US Airways Club at the A Terminal.

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