TL;DR: Good airline, but not as good as it used to be…read more
So when Porter first entered the airline scene, back in 2006, it was the bees knees, lol, and I loved flying Porter. Their home base was Toronto's Billy Bishop Airport, so much more convenient to fly into Billy Bishop than Pearson! And not gonna lie, I kinda loved taking the ferry over to the airport (these days, there's also a tunnel you can walk). And they have a free shuttle service from the airport to Union station that runs every 15 mins. How cool is that?
The thing I loved the most though, was their lounge. They had a special Porter lounge in most of the airports they flew to, with free drinks and snacks. Sadly, those are no more, but they were great when they lasted.
They do still offer cool snacks during the flight, like cookies, fava beans and almonds. And their complimentary drinks include beer and wine. For non-alcoholic drinks they used to give you a small single serving bottle, which I loved because I could refill it and use it on my trip, but now they just give you a cup or glass of it that they pour from a larger container. I guess more environmentally friendly, although they sometimes give you disposable cups.
The flight attendants used to wear old school pillbox hats, which I thought was oh so fashionable, but they don't wear these anymore.
They also used to allow larger carry-on than their competitors, but now their maximum allowed sizes have also shrunk and are on par with the other airlines. Also, in the past their basic fare allowed a carry-on bag (in addition to a personal item) but now the basic fare does not include a carry-on bag, you have to pay extra. Also, in the past you could gate check your carry-on for free, but the last time I flew it looks like they charge for this service now.
They have slowly regressed to being like all the other airlines, at least from a passenger standpoint. Customer service is still better than Air Canada or WestJet in my experience, but there's nothing too unique about them anymore in my opinion. Well, they have Mr Porter, their raccoon mascot, I guess, lol.
I used to really love Porter Airlines. I still like them, but the difference between them and other airlines is really getting smaller. We will see what the future holds.
Also I don't know what is up with all these bots spamming the Porter Airlines Yelp pages with like a million pictures that look like random stock images that have nothing to do with Porter, and the captions have bogus customer service numbers to call. Weird. And also annoying. I'm glad the Yelp moderators remove some of them, but they should be removing all of them!
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