Last year was the first time I flew out of the country, from Manchester heading for Vancouver Island (I have a seperate review about the holiday titled "Vancouver Island-a Wildlife watchers dream"),for my backpacking holiday.

Now for those of you who don't know (I never knew they did), Thomas Cook have now bought their own fleet of Aeroplanes, and have been running them now for a few years after buying out a German Airline company.

On boarding the plane, you are greeted by the very smart looking stewardess's in their blue uniforms, and are directed to your seat, once you stow away any hand luggage,
they come round and check for any overhanging baggage or items which might fall from the overhead storage space.

The one mystery I had was losing a plastic carrier bag which contained a magazine for reading during the flight and a bag of boiled sweets, which had been on my arm from leaving the waiting room to actually boarding the plane, where did it go?

Each seat has a built in tv screen to the rear, for the multi choice of films available, I was able to watch, Master and Commander, Stuck on you, Ice Age, 50 first dates and a few others that I cannot remember, but because I was in the air for about 8-9 hours, it gives you a chance to see about 3 films each way.

Before take off, we watched a safety announcement on the small tv screens, the stewardess's and stewards went throught the safety procedures, pointing out the emergency exits, how to put on your life vest, get into the crash postion, and was well presented.

This was particularly useful for me as I suffer from poor circulation in my legs, so much so that I had bought the socks that are recommended for wearing during the flight ( there murder to get on, so tight, its just like wearing a pair of womens tights, not that I'd know this of course).

They certainly look after you on board, because my flight was an early morning flight we were served Lunch and a Tea, which is a bit strange as you seem to arrive in Vancouver about 14.30 Pacific Time.

The plane itself was fairly spacious and kept very clean, they would come round for your rubbish quite regularly, the toilets were clean, but small ( well what do you expect on a plane), there are toilets for disabled, and I did notice some people in wheelchairs boarding the plane.

The flight itself ran to schedule and there was no problems what so ever, I quite enjoyed the experience of a long haul flight and would certainly go again, especially with Canadian Affair and Thomas Cook, and would recommend to anyone thinking of a trip to Canada (they do east coast flights to Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa and Halifax as well).