Delta to Montréal and back

When I originally booked my AA flight, AA10 had a 9pm departure and 5:45am arrival, giving me a comfortable 2h15m hour connection to Delta's 8am LGA-YUL flight.   Unfortunately, AA retimed AA10 to depart and arrive 45 minutes later.  Fortunately, we arrived JFK 25 minutes early and I wound up with plenty of time.  Indeed, my UberX dropped me off at LGA's Terminal C at 6:40am, less than 45 minutes after pulling into Gate 33 at JFK.

Since I had enough time, I headed for the LGA Delta SkyClub, which is really in Terminal D.  

After freshening up and changing clothes in the SkyClub lav, I headed back to Terminal C...

... and down the escalator to the DL bus gates.

Tarmac views of the ongoing new terminal construction.

A quick 35 minutes later, we are in descent to Montréal where the weather is decidely nicer.

Cool views of my old home town.

And Olympic Stadium as we head east before turning back to land.

More construction on the US/Transborder wing.

The long, long trek to customs.

With an unscheduled stop at baggage claim to retrieve gate check bags, as the gate check elevator at Gate 84 was not working.

The usual mass of homeless bags.

Just outside of customs is the NEXUS/CANPASS office.  

I arrived a good 25 minutes before my scheduled 10:30am appointment.

The process was very efficient and I was fingerprinted, approved and on my way before 10:45am.  Then back upstairs to US/transborder departures.

Since I had plenty of time, I decided to head upstairs to Marriott...

... which is far nicer than waiting in the concourse.  I used the lobby Business Centre for a half hour before heading back downstairs to security and CBP PreClearance.

After US customs, thru the Duty Free shop...

... and into the departures concourse.

Time for lunch.  And a genuine Montreal Smoked Meat sandwich from Lester's.

Yum-yum.

With nasty summer weather moving into New York, we were subjected to a minor ground delay which delayed our departure by an hour.  But since DL pads their schedule, we made up a lot of the difference.

Well it wasn't a bus gate but apparently D5 was not built for CR9s.   More excercise as I'm getting close to my daily 10,000 Fitbit step goal.  LOL.

By 3:20pm or so I was in the terminal and heading to Ground Transportation and a ride to JFK.